‘To the deepest hidden depths of the subconscious and beyond the outer limits of space’ – David Hine talks psychedelic adventuring in Void Runners.
10th June 2023
Void Runners is the new psychedelic sci-fi series from David Hine & Boo Cook that burst into the pages of 2000 AD Prog 2334. It’s all about surreal space adventures, psychedelic cosmic fever dreams, spectacular alien worlds and even more bizarre alien beings.
In Void Runners, the hunt is on for the mythical Kali’s Dust that allows the tyrannical Ankorites to rule over the network of planets and systems known as The Federation. Faced with supplies running low, the Ankorites and their ruthless foot soldiers, The Subjugators, call on notorious Void Runner Captain Alice Shikari to track down the pleroma – the deep-space creatures that are the source of Kali’s Dust.
But Shikari’s no slave to the Federation and has visionary ideas of her own about spreading joy and enlightenment to the masses!
David Hine’s already described this one as ‘a sci-fi version of Ken Kesey’s Magic Bus trip across the USA in the 1960s’ on the launch of the series, where ‘the bus is a spaceship, crewed by Captain Shikari and her piratical crew of Void Runners.’ And he went on to describe what to expect… ‘See fascistic cops who share one mind between three bodies, gigantic jellysquids who are also the oldest, wisest creatures in the cosmos, a battle with kamikaze space sharks and an actual vision of the ultimate meaning of the Universe. WARNING: Do not lick the pages!”
And if that doesn’t make you want to read the series, I don’t know what will!
So, with something very special happening, time to chat to David about the world of Void Runners. Before we begin though, Boo sends his apologies – right now he’s knee deep in paint and pain with the looming deadlines for the final two Void Runners episodes. And Tharg… well, Tharg’s hinted that it would be a very bad idea for the Cook droid to be leaving the drawing board to do an interview until those pages are done. Well, I say hinted, it was more an instruction and mutterings about no more rations until it’s all done!
But don’t worry, if/when Tharg allows, we’ll try to pin Boo down for a chat as well. But here, flying solo, is David Hine…
David, we have a brand-new series from the pair of you that started in 2000 AD Prog 2334 – Void Runners. I’ve seen the first couple of issues and it’s looking rather fabulous.
So, first things first, what’s Void Runners all about? Feel free to give us the elevator pitch version or the long version!
DAVID HINE: My elevator pitch is “Moby Dick in space on acid.” We didn’t actually go with that one because, although it sounds cool, it wasn’t really accurate. It’s actually more like “Dune meets Star Wars on ‘shrooms.” I hate elevator pitches.
Yep, but I do like ‘Dune meets Star Wars on ‘shrooms’ – and after seeing the first couple of episodes I think that one works a treat!
How long is this first series going to be?
DH: Eight episodes of six pages in real-world terms, though time and space are relative and if you stare at some of Boo’s pages in the right state of mind they could be perceived as infinite.
Just from the first couple of episodes that I’ve seen, we’re already in the realms of huge space operas here – a Federation of planetary systems that have been discovered by humanity, now controlled by the evil Ankorites and their foot soldiers, the Subjugators.
DH: Yeah, the Ankorites are a corrupt form of the Christian anchorites, who retreated from the world, often walled up in a cell attached to a church, where they spent their lives contemplating the nature of God. Julian of Norwich was one of these. She wrote the oldest surviving works in the English language that are known to be written by a woman. Her ‘Revelations of Divine Love’ are wonderful.
Our Ankorites are an example of how religious (and political) dogmas can create monstrous institutions. Their intentions may be pure but the conclusions they come to are flawed and have led them to rule the Federation with an iron fist.
Lovely bit of work on that first page by you both by the way, that’s a great line from you David about ‘inhabited by the many life forms that humans have encountered and, on occasion, interbred with.’ That coupled with Boo’s great little illo of the lined up races really does give us an immediate sense of both the scale of the thing, the fact that we’re a long, long way from Earth here, and the fact that humanity has done its usual thing.
DH: The Federation could be seen as a metaphor for Western Empire and colonization but it’s a bit more complex than that. This is so far in the future that humanity has interbred with many thousands of alien species, so what we think of as humanity barely exists in a pure form.
The conflict here is between those who want to impose order and maintain absolute control, and those who are endlessly curious and who want to pursue every possible life choice, no matter what the risk. It’s stagnation against diversity. Order against chaos.
And then comes the introduction of the story driver here, the search for the Pleroma and their Kali’s Dust, the thing giving the Ankorites their powers and control, and their use of the wonderful Captain Shikari, the heroine of the piece.
DH: Kali’s Dust is a psychedelic substance that gives the user visions and allows a degree of telepathy, a union of minds. The Ankorites are like the priests of most religions in that they believe that they are the only ones capable of handling this kind of power. The Subjugators are warrior priests, who have access to a limited amount of the dust and form ‘triumvirates’, groups of three who share a single mind. Use of Kali’s Dust by anyone else is punishable by death.
That’s where Captain Alice Shikari enters the picture. She’s a total DustHead who uses the drug for recreational purposes – sensual delights, enhanced music appreciation, all the usual stuff. But the Dust has also enhanced her ability to track Pleroma, the magnificent beasts who roam the farthest reaches of the universe and are the only source for Kali’s Dust. The Ankorites would love to execute Shikari but they are running out of supplies of the Dust and Shikari is their best bet to find more.
Obviously, Void Runners is a quest with Shikari playing the lead and venturing forth for the Ankorites to sniff out the dust for them, but I’d imagine there’s going to be a lot more to it than just a simple quest here?
DH: Shikari’s own agenda is basically to party but it turns out that she has a greater destiny. That will be revealed as the story progresses. No more spoilers for now.
Hey, always better to have it unfold and enjoy it without spoilers!
Shikari adds that element of bumbling comedy and chaos to all this serious Federation-dominating stuff from the Ankorites.
DH: This is a cosmic version of Ken Kesey’s Merry Pranksters and their Magic Bus trip across the USA in the early sixties. I guess Shikari has elements of Neal Cassady (the driver of the original Magic Bus,) Alice in Wonderland, Lucille Ball, and definitely Captain Jack Sparrow. But there was no specific model for the character.
I had a very clear image of her in my mind as a smart, funny, charismatic, completely insane and unpredictable character and once I described her to Boo, he took her to the next level. I’m overjoyed with the result.
With Void Runners, how did it all come about? Was it an idea from you or from Boo or more of a collaboration?
DH: Boo is the instigator. He literally came to me and asked me to come up with something mad and trippy for him to draw. I knew his work well. He painted the cover to the issue of Richard Starking’s Elephantmen that I had written and drawn, and we had been following each other on Instagram so we were kind of peeking into one another minds and seeing some common ground.
I had the germ of an idea for an updated version of the Magic Bus Trip. I had developed some of those ideas for another publisher who had the weird idea that psychedelics were ‘Too Sixties‘ and gave my pitch the boot. Quite emphatically. Lucky for us Matt Smith is a much more broad-minded individual.
Yep, Tharg’s always been a happy home to a bit of psychedelic storytelling!
I’m always fascinated by the beginnings of any strip, particularly the amount of worldbuilding and background that both writer and artist have to put into the idea before we even come to the first episode hitting the shelves. Presumably both you and Boo had many conversations and meetings to create the expansive worlds and the beings inhabiting them here?
DH: I made the trip to Bristol for the Lawless convention in 2022 specifically to meet up with Boo and talk over ideas. Since then it’s been emails, messenger and the occasional telepathic communication.
Boo did lots of sketches of the characters, the spaceships and various non-human creatures and those visuals influenced the way I wrote the characters. Moondog was always going to look like the real-world musician Moondog but the ship’s cook, Bartleby is straight out of Boo’s imagination and his personality developed from his deceptively brutal appearance. Same with the Subjugators – their look is all Boo.
I gave Boo some guidelines on visual style but only in general terms. We talked about the way cephalopods create a chameleon camouflage effect through chromatophores, which are the cells in their skin that contain pigment, which changes colours rapidly and almost magically. Boo suggested giving Shikari a similar ability, though in her case the skin patterns reflect mood rather than provide camouflage. That ties in really well with the psychedelic scenes.
How’s the collaboration working between you?
DH: It’s brilliant from my perspective. Boo gets what I’m talking about and always ramps up the visuals by a couple of levels beyond what I imagined. Most importantly he gets my sense of humour and actually makes the visual gags very funny.
One of my favourite scenes involves Shikari and Moondog stripping down to their undies and wriggling through a Pleroma’s internal organs. Seeing those finished panels made me laugh out loud.
Alas, no image of that yet – that particular bit of comedy is still to come in a future episode!
DH: The peak experience is when we see the visions triggered by Kali’s Dust. They are really beautifully rendered and probably the most far-out art 2000 AD has published since Brendan McCarthy’s classic work on Judge Dredd.
Yes, there’s definitely a lot of McCarthy influence in Boo’s work, although he’s taken it to some wonderfully different places.
Apart from that Elephantman cover, is this the first time you’ve worked together?
DH: Yeah, that was only one image but I loved it and Boo very generously gave me the original art, so it made a lasting impact.
So far, in just the first 10 pages I’ve seen I think you’ve done a perfect job of establishing it all. That first episode could easily have come off as exposition overload to get over all the information you needed to establish the series background. David, I’m sure you’ll agree that what made that first episode flow so beautifully came from the way that Boo filled the pages of background and intro with incredible designs and artwork.
DH: There was a lot of information to get into the first few pages. The setting doesn’t relate to anything else in 2000 AD, so we had to establish the nature of the Federation, its hierarchy, the concept of the psychedelic drug and the main characters.
It could have been confusing or overly detailed but it works because Boo constructs each page as a holistic design rather than just a series of panels. The art really is outstanding.
Oh, it really is – a career-high from Boo here I reckon, and I know I’m not the only one thinking that.
So, moving onto the artistic side of things David, you’ve already told us of how Boo came on board but what has he brought to the world of Void Runners that you initially saw in your head?
DH: Boo always goes the extra mile. He knows what I’m after but he delivers a lot more. Going back to that first page of Part 1 [pictured above] – I asked for a diverse bunch of alien creatures but I wasn’t expecting such unique individuals. Each of the aliens is only a few centimetres high but they are all good enough to become developed characters. They each come with a ready-made backstory in their visual appearance.
Then there are little extra touches like the Furby-type character that is strategically placed on Page 5 to spare out blushes…
There are loads of little touches like that, which are pleasant surprises and prove that Boo is totally invested in his work. He’s a visionary artist. Looking at these pages is the closest you can get to a psychedelic experience, without psychedelics.
What can we expect for the future of Void Runners? Where will you be taking us in this first series?
DH: To the deepest hidden depths of the subconscious and beyond the outer limits of space, where no sentient life-form has been before.
So, nothing too big then!
And have you already mapped out plans for future series? Should The Mighty One give you his blessing of course!
DH: I know where Shikari and her crew are going but I haven’t figured out all the stops along the way in any detail yet. I like to leave myself some surprises. This series is definitely a jumping-off point and I hope it will be just the first stage in an epic odyssey.
Now, to end with, as usual, what sort of things can we look forward to from you both after Void Runners? Obviously David you have more Dark Judges with Nick Percival to come. But what else can we expect, either from Tharg or elsewhere?
DH: I have several long-term projects at various stages and one massive project that is now completed but, frustratingly, won’t be announced until July. The next big creator-owned one will be Beastly with Mark Stafford. Our fourth, our biggest and our best graphic novel collaboration.
And of course, Dave was too modest to tell you what the others were, so I shall – he and Mark Stafford have made The Man Who Laughs (adapting Victor Hugo’s classic, SelfMadeHero, 2013), Lip Hook (SelfMadeHero, 2018), and The Bad, Bad Place (Soaring Penguin, 2019). All three are excellent and come highly recommended.
Thank you so much to David for sharing his time with us to talk Void Runners. It was every bit as enjoyable, informative, and out there as I was expecting after reading the first two episodes of the series. If you’ve already had the pleasure of getting your mind stretched out by the first episode, you’ll already know this one’s a sure-fire hit!
Void Runners began in 2000 AD Prog 2334 and runs for eight episodes until Prog 2342, with a break for Regened Prog 2336. It’s a psychedelic thrill ride that only the Galaxy’s Greatest can give you – don’t miss out on another great trip!
Before you leave though, be sure to check out Boo Cook’s excellent Covers Uncovered for the first Void Runners cover to Prog 2334 – it’s every bit as psychedelically great as you’d expect! And remember David’s words… ‘Do not lick the pages!’ – after all….
And finally, if you’re loving Void Runners, don’t delay, head out and buy those great Hine/Stafford books today!
