Interview: Curt Pires talks first

The high-paced magic detective story Lost Fantasy, created by Curt Pires, is back for a triumphant 4th arc, but that’s not all. The TECC team has expanded the universe with Fireborn, co- which is entering its second arc and introducing a brand-new character, Bombshell, in the pages of Lost Fantasy. Both Lost Fantasy #13andFireborn#5 are in comic shops on October 28, going on FOC this Monday, October 3

This comic book universe is going full steam ahead with its first in-universe crossover, pitting our Fireborn and Lost Fantasy heroes against each other. The Beat caught up with Pires to talk about what’s next in the Lost Fantasy universe, what new variants the team has been working on, and the importance of having fun while doing it.   

This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.

Javier Perez: So we are pretty far into Lost Fantasy and going into the 5th issue of Fireborn, and our heroes are finally facing each other.

Curt Pires: Yeah,Fireborn #5and Lost Fantasy #13, it’s our first crossover event. The challenge for me inLost Fantasywas, “OK, how do I make a fantasy book I’d want to read?”I think fantasy is cool, but I have a hard time engaging with it.

Fireborn, kind of the same thing: I love superhero comics, but indie superhero comics can be tough because a lot of times it can feel like an off-brand version of the real thing, like if you can get a Coca-Cola, you’re not gonna be as excited about the No Name. So I took that challenge on, and I think created one of the coolest superhero books on the stands with my teammates. Approaching this, we’re applying that same logic, if we’re going to do a crossover, how do we make it?

It has to be cool and engaging, so we are doing this sort ofSandmanorRashomon-inspired thing where the characters fight, and each book tells that character’s perspective of the fight. The art is different in each book, obviously, and they have different beginning and end points, so the story of Lost Fantasy is still being pushed forward in that issue.

With Fireborn #5, we have a couple of really key first-appearance cameos in this issue; we see the antagonist of the new arc on the last page, and we meet our love interest. Both books, on top of crossing over, are still pushing their stories forward, so I feel like we achieved our goal there.

Perez: Is this a good jumping point for new readers?

Pires: Yeah, absolutely. Both these issues are in stores on October 28th, the same day Fireborn Volume One is also in stores. So you could buy the first volume of Fireborn and then both these issues and check them out, see what the next step in the storytelling is, and then conversely the idea here is for people who are just readingFireborn, if they want to check out Lost Fantasy and see what it’s about, they can pick that up and get a taste of it, so really it’s just, I think a fun and exciting way to invite people into the, the world we’re building.

Perez: And we are bringing Bombshell back within the first couple of pages of Lost Fantasy 13.

Pires:So we bring back Bombshell and Lost Fantasy #13;it’s a year-one story, and we’re calling it Bombshell chapter 0. Timmy Hegue and I co-wrote it. It serves as a lead-in to Bombshell’s further adventures, and we’ve brought along Giada Belviso; she’s an outstanding artist who’s done a lot of work at Marvel, some Godzilla stuff at IDW, and the great Lee Loughridge is coloring it.

​Perez: I think it’s really cool how the camaraderie comes off across the page; you can tell you guys are having fun in a world the whole team helped create.  

Pires:That’s the special thing aboutLost Fantasy; it’s given me friendships with Franklin and Timmy and all these people, and it pulls us into it where it’s a big jam, right?

And I think that’s the difference between us and some of the otheruniverses.  We’re like not so sanitized or like corporate in a way that we’re doing something with the books.  We’re building a universe where these books cross over and all this stuff, but we’re trying to keep it fun.

We’re just, we’re making something that we are proud of and wanna create, and people are latching onto it because they see it comes from a love of comics and storytelling and the medium, and I think like that’s the credit to what we are doing here. It’s building into a universe and does have this bigger story we’re telling, but you can enjoy the individual parts of the whole.

​Perez: What about variants? Will there be more homages?

​Pires: On Fireborn, there’s a homage to Amazing Spider-Man #316. It’s the Todd McFarlane cover where Venom’s over Spider-Man, and he’s about to kill him. We have another homage to the first issue of Donny Cates and Ryan Stegman’sVenom cover with the great lightning on it, and then on Lost Fantasy, there’s a Final Fantasy 9 homage. Then there’s X-Men vs Marvelone, the PlayStation 1 game, so those are both super fun ones.

I think people will be excited, and there are connecting covers as well by Jarret Hartnell that we used as a poster to tease an event.

Perez: How do you go about finding artists?

Pires:Social media, right, and I follow a lot of artists on there. I’m always trying to pay attention when I go to the shop or see books solicited, like which covers catch my eye, and then just trying to make the books as special as we can. I like that most of our covers are openly orderable, meaning that if you like a cover on one of the books, there’s a good chance you can get it for 4.99.

​Perez: So we’re going into the 4th arc ofLost Fantasy and the second arc of Fireborn. What will readers be looking at?

​Pires:Yeah, Lost Fantasy, this is kind of what we’ve been building to. It shows Edge and the villains heading to this island, where the wall between worlds is thinnest, and they’re trying to break it down so they can invade Earth.

It’s all about Henry and the team trying to stop them from doing that. The fourth arc is the combination of everything so far, and then in terms of Fireborn, the second arc is really about: we’ve seen Aaron’s powers, we’ve seen him go through this gauntlet, and now we’re building the world around him more, showing what he’s going to do with these powers and what it means to be a hero.

​So that sets up issue six, which hits the ground running: we see this new villain basically immediately start going after Aaron. It’s like from page 1 onward, sort of at breakneck speed, so Aaron doesn’t get much of a break. At the end of Fireborn’s first arc, he’s joking about how bored he is, and he gets more than he bargained for in the second arc.

​Perez: Anything else you’d like to add?

​Pires:I’m just super excited for everyone to check out this crossover showdown and the continuing adventures of Fireborn, the Lost Fantasy team, and our amazing Bombshell team; allthese stories are just going to keep going.  So we’re just excited to keep telling these amazing stories with our collaborators and our publishing partners at Image Comics.

Lost Fantasy #13 and Fireborn #5 are in comic shops on October 28, going on FOC this Monday, October 3.