MATT MCGRATH and MERISSA MAYHEW take us on A JOURNEY INTO THE ABYSS

Luis Godoy II hosts Matt McGrath and Merissa Mayhew for a chat about A Journey into the Abyss: A Science Fantasy Graphic Novel, available on Kickstarter through July 24th!

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COMIC BOOK YETI: Matt and Merissa, welcome to the Yeti Cave! Thank you for submitting your Kickstarter campaign for an interview. From previews provided, it’s the story of a woman named Beatrice - President of the legendary Astronomy Club - and her desire and drive to travel beyond the planets and reach for the spheres of the stars while dealing with the grief of the loss of her spouse, Alcofrisbas. The influences and inspiration of this story are upfront about the inspiration. What about the films of George Méliès inspired you about the story and how did you incorporate the visuals to A Journey into The Abyss?

MATT McGRATH: I always knew about the image of the moon getting hit in the eye with the rocket since I was a kid. It’s just one of those iconic images that you recognize, even if you don’t know where it’s from. It wasn’t until university where I majored in cinema studies that I watched A Trip to the Moon for the first time and learned about the films of Georges Méliès. 

I also watched The Impossible Voyage and Conquest of the Pole at that time, and I was struck by the visuals and how elaborate and theatrical his work was (I believe he was originally a magician). So I wanted to make a movie riffing on his films (back when I wanted to be a filmmaker), but it never took shape. But the idea stuck with me for years until I finally found the heart of the story during the pandemic. 

There are some obvious works that have taken inspiration from Méliès (the Smashing Pumpkins "Tonight, Tonight" music video, Hugo, and I Saw The TV Glow) but overall, his flat theatrical style and mix of sci-fi with fantasy isn’t really emulated today (maybe that has to do with the fact that these films are over 100 years old!) but I think it looks beautiful, so I really wanted to play in this sandbox and mix and match the settings and characters in his films to create my Unified Theory of Méliès. 

MERISSA MAYHEW: I had never known much about Méliès except for his iconic shot of the bullet-shaped rocket ship in the Moon’s eye, but knowing and seeing how much Matt drew from his films to shape this story, I felt it my duty as the illustrator to watch that film—and at once, I was in love! A Trip to the Moon, among others, contains such fantastical visuals from an original mind. It was important that we could convey this surreal magic—somehow—in this story. There is practically an homage to his theatricality on every page.

I also wanted to give the artwork the feel of the films, and found I could do so through the way I apply colour. Back in Méliès’s time, the film was shot in black-and-white, but then artists—usually women—would tint the film with special chemical dyes, and painstakingly paint every frame to give it colour.  Different colours would give a different feel: amber, for warm interior daylight scenes; azure for night time scenes, or lavender for romantic scenes, for example.  So these black-and-white films were actually in colour! And I found a way to replicate a similar technique for A Journey into the Abyss. After the line art is finalised, I render everything in black and white--then I colour over it on a special layer with a palette I created that was inspired by these old films.  

CBY: I notice that on several of the pages are six panel pages, with each panel being equal in size to how many people use nine panel grids. Was this a specific storytelling choice or due to comfort with these sized panels?

MM: I think we always knew from the beginning that we wanted to use a uniform layout and panel size to mimic the frames of a film!  

MMcG: Move over, Tom King! Nine-panel grids are out! It’s all about six-panel grids now!  

Like Merissa says, it’s to capture the 4:3 film ratio that was used in silent and classic films. Chester Brown uses the six-panel grid in his book Louis Riel, which is a favourite of mine and influences how I frame pages and panels when I write. There’s something very classically comics about the six-panel grid that I really dig. 

CBY: Speaking of the panel layout, this book is an 80 page graphic novel at A4 size (basically standard international size for non-American readers). From my personal experience with Matt’s other book, ID-10t error, which I think is the same size, its a great size to read comics. Matt, what intrigues you about this format and Merissa, did you have any challenges in your layouts at this size, if you have used the standard comic size in the past?

MMcG: It was a total happy accident. The first issue of ID-10t error was meant to be digital only when I released it, and it was only a year later that I decided to print it. But at that point, I learned that Otavio drew the pages on A4 paper and we couldn’t change the size without cropping or distorting the images. But it worked out well, because I love the format! Because of the French influences, I wanted the book to have a European comic/Bandes dessinées feel to it. 

MM: I’ve been all over the map with page sizes!  If anything, the A4 format gives a LOT of breathing room for myself to put in an extraordinary amount of details, and it will give the reader a chance to actually see that detail, which I think is part of the charm!  

CBY: The other part of note is that it is an LGBTQ2S+ book (2S meaning Two-Spirit for those unaware, which I just learned recently), how important is it to each of you to have LGBTQ2S+ media representation?

MM: As a queer person, I find it incredibly important to have these stories told.  A Journey into the Abyss isn’t even a romance, per se, but to contain LGBTQ2S+ characters gives someone out there a chance to recognise themselves in a story where they might never have before.  

MMcG: Yeah, I think it’s incredibly important, especially now with this surge in bigotry in the world. As a straight cis white dude, I want to add more diverse characters in my stories. Like I mentioned, these films are over 120 years old, and contain all white, heterosexual characters. So when I was plotting this story, I knew I wanted to “recast” a lot of the characters from the original film as queer or people of colour. 

CBY: What tiers or add-on are you most excited for people to get from the campaign, other than the main book itself, obviously? (Full disclosure, I am a backer of this book as well.)

MMcG: You sure are—thank you for backing! I’m most excited for the risograph bookplate reward. I LOVE the look of risograph printing (if the length of JitA was significantly shorter, I would have ideally entirely printed it riso). This will be the first time I try riso printing on one of my projects, so for that reason alone I’m really stoked about it. 

But I also love getting bookplates--it’s a nice memento to stick on the inside cover of a book. We’re going for a very old-school “ex libris” bookplate design and Merissa did an amazing job drawing it. 

I’m also pretty stoked for the art grab bag tier, where backers can grab some original concept sketches or penciled pages from the book at a very affordable price. I’m a sucker for original artwork, so whenever I have the spare cash, I always opt to grab some pretty drawings.   

MM: Matt’s risograph propaganda has really made me fall in love with the book plate, too. I’m really looking forward to seeing how it turns out!

Honestly, I’ve been getting a lot of comments about how cool the portrait tier is! This one’s about having yourself—or, you know, a loved one—getting drawn into the comic itself! I haven’t seen a tier like this often in other comic/graphic novel Kickstarters. It’s a fun little extra that gives backers an opportunity to actually participate in the comic and interact with the creative team! A Journey into the Abyss has a lot of grand picture frames in the backgrounds—tentatively they’re filled with stills from Méliès’s films—and also a few other unique spaces for faces to fill.

CBY: Since this is a somewhat larger project for the comic world, at 80 pages, I see you have a somewhat unique release schedule. What was the thought process behind releasing the book in chapters digitally as they are completed versus all at once?

MMcG: I think it was Doug Wood with his series Ultra Max who ran one Kickstarter for four issues that were all released digitally and then once the digital release was done, he printed the book. I always thought that was a cool way to release a comic on Kickstarter and really worked well for this platform. So that was the inspiration. The story is episodic so I thought it made sense to release the book digitally as we complete each story nugget. That way people don’t have to wait a long time to read the story, and can see the book as it progresses. Or if you want to read the book all in one go, we’re also releasing the PDF collection and the printed version. So we’re trying to keep everyone happy! 

CBY: Thank you for the opportunity for an interview, Matt and Merissa. Where else can people find each of you on social media? And if you have other projects in the works, please give teasers if you can.

MMcG: Yeah! You can find me @stupidmatt@bsky.social or over on insta @stupid_matt_mcgrath

In terms of next projects, my next thing will be a NSFW horror one shot and a trade version of ID-10t error. I’m also writing a mecha horror miniseries I’m having a ton of fun with! 

MM: Aw, thank you so much!  My insta is @sorecy, and my portfolio is at www.merissa.art

While I’m focusing on A Journey in the Abyss, I’ll always have some sort of passion project turning gears in the back of my mind, where I’ll do sketches and notes here and there.  My biggest ones at the moment are: a fantasy-horror webcomic about a young witch in a haunted forest, and a graphic novel set in a fantasy Bronze Age with magic artcraft and environmental themes ;)

CBY: This was Luis from Comic Book Yeti, signing off with another interview from the Yeti Cave. Be good, do good, and read comics! Find me on BlueSky ‪@luisgodoyii.bsky.social‬ or the CBY discord

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