The Once and Future Queen is a new comic from authors Adam P. Knave and DJ Kirkbride and artist Nick Brokenshire that debuted earlier this week from Dark Horse Comics. It reinvents the legend of King Arthur in the modern world, with a more modern and diverse sensibility, as the protagonist is a teenage, mixed-race, bisexual girl who happens to be a chess prodigy.
I’ve only read issue one, but it’s a very fun comic that reads quickly and it’s easy to be absorbed in.
While at the Artist Alley table (M-8), I talked to Adam P. Knave and DJ Kirkbride for a brief interview about their great, new comic.
How did this comic come about, the Once and Future Queen?
DJ: Well, Adam and I co-write a lot together. We’ve done a series called Amelia Cole with the artist Nick Brokenshire, and once that wrapped, we decided we wanted to keep working together, so Adam and I kinda scrambled to come up with an idea that Nick would draw, right?
Adam: Yeah, and you know, knowing that Nick was a big Arthurian fan, as am I, and DJ’s just kind of getting into it on the edge, it was perfect for being able to come at it from a new approach. Every time me and Nick were like, “Well, this is how it goes,” DJ’s like, “Why? Why?”
DJ: My ignorance kind of helps us take some more wacky chances.
How does that dynamic work then if it’s something that that might not have been one of your interests before the comic?
DJ: I know the broad strokes. I think we all know a bit about Arthurian legend. I’ve seen The Sword in the Stone. I’ve read some of The Once and Future King. I’ve watched Excalibur when I was too young to watch it. I’m a big fan of Camelot 3000, just a cool wacky ’80s future book. But, I think it’s fun too because were not trying to really follow the story.
I just read it this morning and I loved it. I even wanted to go down and buy Issue Two after that.
Adam: Oh, nice. Thank you.
DJ: It’s out, I believe, April 12th from Dark Horse Comics.
Can you talk maybe a little bit about where the series would go without giving away anything?
Adam: We’re reinventing the legend, and that’s the thing. We’re not retelling it. We’re not re-adapting it. We’re breaking it when we feel like going in our own direction. Really, what we’re doing is we’re going, “Here’s the modern world. What does it look like when we say here’s someone who’s a monarch,” because we don’t really have global monarchs right now, and the original Arthurian legend was all about how we come together to survive, and this is just an exploration of that on a much bigger scale.
DJ: Yeah, because kind of then England was kind of their world, right? And now it’s like, this character, it’s in a modern world where it’s like all of earth, and we’re gonna have to come together against these invaders from the land of Fae, and there’s a lot that we do in the miniseries initially. If we get to do more, we have plans to expand the story, bring in more of the Round Table, and delve a little deeper, in a very action-packed, fun comic book way.
I really hope it takes off and it becomes a long running series.
DJ: Oh, we do too. Thank you.
How long did this take to develop?
Adam: Well, we were working on the plot … We worked with Nick on the plotting. He sees everything. So, before we even started concept art, it was at least about three months?
DJ: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Adam: And then you have your normal development cycle for all of the art to the pic states, it’s another three to four months, and then once we got to start moving on the book, we lined it up with Dark Horse, you have about like … We’re looking at six to eight months. So, we’ve been sitting on this one for a while.
So it must be pretty satisfying then to have it finally come out.
Adam: Oh, yeah.
DJ: Ah, man, it was great. What’s fun too is because Emerald City started the day after the book came out, I flew to Portland, and Adam and I did a signing at this great shop called Books With Pictures. Then we drove up and hour at the con. We did a signing at Dark Horse earlier today. It’s like a perfect time for the book to come out.
Especially with part of it taking place in Portland.
DJ: Oh, yeah. And that was, Adam and Nick actually, when Nick came down for Rose City Con a couple years ago, and commented that Mount Hood in Portland reminded him of Cornwall, England. And so Adam remembered that as we were developing this book.
Adam: Right, and it gave us a tie to the location, and since he was born there, I’m living in Portland, we were able to really get a lot of reference going and built it out.
And with Dark Horse being-
Adam: Right, it doesn’t hurt.
It’s like this comic mecca now. How did that happen? There’s so many great artists from Portland right now.
DJ: Oh, yeah. A great company. It’s the place to be.
Do you want to talk anything about that I didn’t ask about that people should know or …?
Adam: The first issue is a start, but the book is getting much bigger, much faster, but throughout the initial issue, and there are certain things that we had to figure out in the legend how to make them work in a modern way, which was a whole lot of fun to solve those problems, and so you see those throughout the book, and it’s kind of this fun puzzle.
DJ: And Nick’s art is beautiful. We worked with him on Amelia Cole, and it’s amazing to see his art grow, and so to see it, this first issue is beautiful, and it keeps getting better. I would say, one of the things is, we like to make comic books that feel like comic books, so, expect a fast paced really fun story. You’re gonna get a lot … You know, comic books cost 3.99 per issue now, so we want to make sure that we cram those 22 pages with a lot of fun, and so we’re not messing around. We’re making comics. You’re gonna have a good time if you read the book.
I loved how fast it read, and I like I said, once it stopped, I was like, “I really don’t want to wait another month for this to pick up again because I want to read issue two right now.”
DJ: That’s great. That’s the feeling we’re hoping that all readers have.
Well, let me just ask, what are you enjoying about Emerald City so far? How’s it going for you?
Adam: This is a great kickoff to the con season every year, so it’s one of our favorite shows.
DJ: Oh, yeah. I love it. Like, Seattle is a great city, and then also, this year, the way they’ve reformatted the convention, having Artist’s Alley on its own floor? It seems to be working out really well. It’s one of my favorite cons.
I’ll just ask, because I’ve already taken up a lot of your morning, is if there anything else you wanted to talk about while the tape recorder is running?
DJ: I think, you know, just that we hope people check out the Once and Future Queen and enjoy it, and we love making comics. We want to make more.
