Its a good time to be a fan of N.K.
On Wednesday, DC Comics announced that it is reviving its Young Animal publishing imprint.
Young Animal was shut down for a while, but now its coming back in a big way.
Credit: Laura Hanifin
Check out the exclusive interview below.Far Sectoris set to launch in late 2019.
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Whats your relationship with comics?
How long have you been reading them, and what inspired you to try writing them yourself?N.K.
DC/Vertigo
So I havent read American comics until relatively recently.
Well, I should say American superhero comics.
The superhero thing has been the roundabout thing Im coming back to at last.
I thought it would be a good chance to explore the cop nature of Green Lanterns.
I consulted with some friends of mine who are GL friends.
My cousin,W.
Kamau Bell, is a raging Green Lantern fan, so he told me, dont screw this up.
I was interested in doing something that would explore that idea.
When Gerard suggested something, it all crystallized into this one thing.
So thats basically what Jo is: She is the cop on the frontier, standing against chaos.
In her background shes an NYPD cop, so shes been on a large force.
Its really an exploration of the nature of cop-ness, if that makes sense.
I was very intrigued by the description of the City Enduring, where Jo finds herself.
I had to look up what a Dyson Sphere is, but it sounds amazing.
Shes the newcomer, shes our viewpoint character.
But its just like a newcomer to any city.
You cant just lay things out in the same way as with prose.
I might one day!
But Ive never been very wedded to the line between science-fiction and fantasy.
MyBroken Earthseries deliberately played with the concept of whether what was happening was magic, or super advanced science.
Thats kind of what Im playing with a little bit.
Thats why Jo cant come in just swinging to fix problems.
Theyd had a pretty volatile history up to that point, and they decided emotions were the problem.
So they designed a technological block to cut off their emotions.
They consider themselves a society of pure rationalists.
They have a go at downplay the value of emotion.
Theres a drug epidemic of, effectively,emotionrunning through the city.
But, people who dont know how to cope with their emotions dont handle it well.So, yeah.
Without any prior practice, suddenly feeling all the feels is not exactly a happy thing to do.
Thats what Jo is up against: A bunch of people suddenly busting out with feelings.
As we humans know, coping with feelings is a running process.
Shes there to be a role model, but also shes human.
So it should be interesting.
Are you just flexing your creative muscles right now?Basically, yeah!
When else are you gonna do it if not when you win three Hugos?
It gives me the freedom to try new things.
Ive also tried dipping a toe in video games.
Im interested in many things, but they all come back to storytelling.
Im always fascinated by the way changes in medium change the way storytelling works.
Any final thoughts on Jo?
She shares a name with Sojourner Truth, one of the foremost revolutionary figures in American history.
I probably not unconsciously nah, it was deliberate wanted her to look like Janelle Monae.
Youll probably notice that when you get a chance to see her.
The name connection will become clear over the course of the story.
