In preparation for the launch of Image Comics Middlewest, I sought out artist Jorge Corona at NYCC 2018. His art style for the homegrown fantasy epic really grabbed me, so I wanted to know how he and writer Skottie Young got together and what kind of story they had planned for the project. If this book isn’t on your radar, please consider it. You can check out my review of Middlewest #1 here.
ComicAttack: First and foremost, if you wouldn’t mind giving me your name and role on Middlewest?
Jorge Corona: My name is Jorge Corona and my role is, I’m the the illustrator for Middlewest.
CA: For our audience, for the comic attack.net audience that might not be familiar with some of your previous work, what’s the work that you are most proud of, the projects you’ve worked on previously?
JC: I started with Goners, which was a horror adventure story for Image Comics, and Feathers, which was like a creator owned.. I wrote and also illustrated Feathers for Archaia. I recently worked on No. 1 With a Bullet, I worked on We Are Robin for DC Comics, and I’ve also worked on some projects for like Adventure Time and stuff like that, so just a little bit all over the place.
CA: Cool. How did the team for Middlewest come together?
JC: So I met Skottie maybe like five or six years ago when I was still in school. When Feathers, my book, came out he commented on it online and we just kept in touch. Like on conventions and stuff like that we’d always run into each other. So about two years ago he contacted me because he wanted to write books more for other artists to work on. And then he had an idea for a book back then for a project he wanted to do together. Sadly that didn’t happen, we both got busy doing other stuff.
So last year he contacted me. He had most of the first few issues of Middlewest already written down, so he already had that part of the work all set down. So it was just a matter of if my schedule allowed it. I was just coming out of No. 1 With a Bullet and Big Trouble in Little China, which is another book that I was working on. So it all kind of like coincided and then we started working on that.
CA: What was your inspiration for the style of Middlewest, where did you kind of draw that from?
JC: Well Middlewest has a lot of inspiration from animated movies that both Skottie and I grew up with or loved. A lot of like, Don Bluth. A lot of like, Miyazaki and stuff like that, where fantasy plays a lot into, not only the story per se, but also the theme and the mood of the story.
Everything revolves around that fantasy and magic aspect of it. More specifically, we wanted to tell a story set in this fantasy midwest basically. So we wanted that feel of like, not necessarily rough, but yeah, kind of like a rough environment within the artwork. So my ink style changed a lot for Middlewest because I went a lot looser and a lot rougher, just to bring that part of the aspect of the story into the art itself.
CA: What about the location? Can you tell me a little more about the environment that this story takes place?
JC: For sure. Middlewest is going to be a setting that, if you’re familiar with the American midwest, you’re going to recognize a lot of the things. But what we wanted to do, and we even talked about it when we were starting to come up with the concept and visual aesthetic of the book, it was that we wanted it to feel 70% real, 30% magical.
So there’s a lot of it that you’re going to feel that you’ve seen this before, but there’s going to be a lot of magic and a lot of like hidden fantasy behind all these more common elements. And that’s basically.. That’s going to be the environment that kind of like follows the story of Abel, our main character, through the whole book.
CA: And what kind of adversary is Abel up against?
JC: So this story is basically a coming of age story. Abel is not necessarily going to have the bad guy that he has to defeat, because this story is mostly about him and figuring out who he is. Figuring out how to break a cycle of like a dysfunctional family dynamic. So there’s not going to be really, like a big bad guy. It’s going to be different situations is which Abel is going to have to succeed and surpass difficulties in his journey and what that’s going to be is going to make him figure out more stuff about himself. So in a way, it’s even like he’s fighting mostly himself during the whole story.
CA: And you feel like that character is very relatable to the audience because it’s a very introspective kind of journey?
JC: Yeah, I feel like that’s a journey that no matter the setting and no matter where you’re from you kind of like, always go through. That moment where you’re still a kid, but you’re figuring out more and more what your life is going to be like. And sometimes with family some of the dynamics that you’re accustomed to, you start questioning them.
You start figuring out like, you know, family is just people that are older than you. It’s not like they’re always right or always wrong. And then you start figuring out and make your own opinion about, not only your family, not only the world, but also about yourself. So it’s relatable no matter where you’re from I guess.
CA: Now, would you say that Abel was your favorite character to draw? Maybe there are some other characters that give you a little more licence to take some risk.
JC: Oh, for sure. The good thing is that Abel.. We wanted Abel to feel like a very, almost ordinary kid. We wanted to make his life, especially at the beginning, kind of feel as ordinary as possible. So Abel doesn’t have anything, maybe, that stands out too much when you first meet him. And we wanted to place this character, as soon as the story starts and he starts traveling through the Middlewest, against situations and other characters that seem a lot more fantastical.
So the good thing is that, with the way Skottie wrote the story, almost every issue I get to draw or I get to present characters who are going to oppose Abel, or who are going to be in the cast of Middlewest, that are completely out there. So, you’re going to see characters like.. That not only physically, but their traits as a person are completely different and unique. So there’s a lot of characters. Abel has also Fox, who is the character that acts almost like a Jiminy Cricket kind of..
CA: Kind of like a conscience?
JC: Yeah, but it’s not even the conscience, it’s just the companion. So Fox is going to get Abel as much as in trouble as get him out of trouble. It’s not like the character that’s going to be, “Always do good.” It’s the character that is like, “This is what you need to do to survive and it’s going to work out, or not. But we’ll see.” And Fox is a very fun character to draw because it’s literally a Fox that has almost no expression most of the time. And I still try to emote as much as I can with this character that is very like, deadpan most of the time. So that’s a fun character to have around for most of the issues.
CA: Now personally, do you find it’s more gratifying to work with that emotive kind of personal, character driven component to the story, or is it more fun for you to take on the the big action and the setpieces?
JC: I think it’s half and half. I love the big action and like I said, animation and animated movies are a big influence in this book and are a big influence in my career. So I love that big action and I love to take the characters and do crazy stuff with them, but I feel that every story need that personal connection. That you need, as a reader, that personal connection with the characters. Especially with Middlewest being such a personal and kind of like a “self” journey story, it’s a lot of fun to try to emote as much as I can with the characters and let the reader get in contact or feel what the character is feeling, and doing the character acting as good as I can just to emote that way.
CA: Now what can you tell me about the run? Is this going to be a limited run or ongoing?
JC: No, It’s going to be ongoing. So we’re going to keep doing it. We already have the first three arcs basically planned, and we have an idea of where we want to take it for another three arcs. So we’re going to take it ongoing as much as we can.
CA: Now is this the only project that you’re going t be working on, or are you working on something else?
JC: Well, right now I just came out of working two books at the same time so I needed a little bit of a rest. So right now I’m just concentrating on Middlewest and I’m doing also covers for the Season 11 Adventure Time comic with BOOM! Studios.
CA: Great! Thank you so much
We at comicattack.net would like to thank Jorge Corona for taking the time to discuss this great new property. Image Comics’ Middlewest #1 is available here and at comics retailers.
Christian Davenport
cable201@comiacttack.net
