Eisner-nominated writers and artists Ibrahim Mustafa (Jaeger, high crime rate) explores themes of redemption, sacrifice, and finding family forwardis the follow-up to his 2021 graphic novel, count. Mustafa expands the character arc of Melis (aka Cyn), the government’s cybernetic enforcer and harbinger of death and destruction.
Injured and with amnesia, Melis wakes up on a remote farm, under the care of Ness, an engineer and adoptive father of two orphaned girls. Nath attempts to control Nath’s violent impulses while nursing her back to health and teaching her to embrace her inner humanity. But violence is omnipresent and threatens the mental stability Melis and Ness and their adopted daughters strive to achieve in a remote corner of the galactic frontier.
Mustafa’s forward, The second book in his three-book deal with Humanoids, it’s atmospheric, moody and thought-provoking. Mustafa and beat On the world-building and artistic influences of making this spin-off series count and the roles he envisions playing Cyn and Ness on the big screen.
The Beat: Thank you for being interviewed by The Beat forward! Can you talk about the inspiration behind this new book and why you decided to go in the direction of a sci-fi western?
Ibrahim Mustafa: I’m very happy, thank you for inviting me. forward is a loose sequel to my 2021 book countingwhich is my reimagining of science fiction count of monte cristo. I set it in a science fiction world because I wanted to do a lot of world building, which would make the book more visually interesting and fun to draw. Cyn/Meris is a supporting character and I had been planning to continue her story in this way. So, in setting her on a path to seek anonymity, it makes sense that she heads to a dusty, sparsely populated corner of that world.
The Beat: What I find interesting is the spiritual language throughout this story of redemption and sacrifice, particularly in the relationship between Melis and Ness. Was this intentional or did the dialogue evolve over the course of the story?
Mustafa: I would say, a little bit of both. Given her sordid past, her arc was always planned to be one of redemption. She’s been under the thumb of an evil dictator before, so I wanted her to experience the exact opposite of Nath’s. He was inspired by someone in my life who really helped shape me and showed me the right path during some very pivotal years in my youth, but he allowed me to go down that path myself. So a lot of it came together during production as I followed the plan I had for the character.
The Beat: Let’s Talk World Building forward. What artistic and literary influences did you draw on to create this foreboding and predatory frontier world?
Mustafa: The good thing is that the world is already built countingand forward I got to explore another corner of it. The germ of the idea for this world was based on floating islands. I think they look really cool and I want to make the prison counting Living on a floating landmass with no escape, but I needed to make it make sense. So I envisioned a world where the polarity of minerals in the Earth was opposite, causing islands to levitate, like two magnets that repel each other. This led me to design a society that would base the Industrial Revolution on this concept, utilizing these polarities rather than the internal combustion engine.
This meant the vehicles would look different, so I based them on animals. Their boats look like whales, their “war horses” or hover bikes look like horses, and so on. forwardI am far away from developed metropolises counting And ask yourself what a western town version of that world would look like.
The Beat: What were some of the challenges in bringing this story to life?
Mustafa: To be honest, I’m just painting crowd scenes [laughing]. It makes me happy when I tell a story in this way, write it down and draw it, and nothing hinders my work. So, it’s hard to draw something difficult for yourself.
The Beat: If I saw this on the big screen, I feel like there’s Jeffrey Wright hidden in the development of Ness and Carrie-Ann Moss hidden in Meris. What do you think of this casting possibility?
Mustafa: Jeffrey Wright would be a perfect Ness. I love Carrie-Anne Moss, so I would never sneeze at her playing Meris/Cyn. When I designed her, I didn’t have anyone in mind for her countingbut when I get into her action scenes forward, I think Sophia Boutella is perfect for this role because of her physical qualities. Interestingly, Rebellious Moon I wrote the book and it came out, and there was a similar premise in that movie, and I thought “Okay, now that’s impossible.” [laughing].
The Beat: I wanted to know more about Melis’ journey to regain her humanity. will forward Become a continuing series?
Mustafa: There are currently no plans to utilize her further; I hope she can live the peaceful life she has always sought. But I’d love to visit her again if I had the right idea. In the meantime, there’s more about her in the pages above countingwhere we get to see some of the violent past she was forced to live with.
related
