By Zack Quaintance — A.C. Esguerra recently released their debut graphic novel, Eighty Days, an alternate timeline queer historical romance story about aviators who find love in a time of war. It’s a deep and engrossing graphic novel, one that pays heavy attention to every last details, from the interactions between characters to the larger world around them.

The result is a standout debut graphic novel, and we were thrilled recently to have a chance to chat with Esguerra about the book, which is out now. You can check out our conversation — edited for lengthy and clarity — below. Enjoy!

INTERVIEW: A.C. Esguerra discusses new graphic novel, EIGHTY DAYS

ZACK QUAINTANCE: I really enjoyed the book, and the first thing I wanted to ask about was how you developed the aesthetic for the book. From page one, the visuals feel classic but also in keeping with a lot of modern comics…it feels like a classic yet hip book.

A.C. ESGUERRA: Well, it’s a product of my influences. I was influenced by a lot of manga artists growing up — like Naoki Urasawa, Kaoru Mori — as well as Studio Ghibli’s films, but for this story in particular, I was also looking at films from classic Hollywood, black-and-white 1940s. Cassablanca, Roman Holiday, this kind of old-timey vibe meshed with those manga influences, and that’s what you see today.

ZACK: That’s really interesting you say that. This book did have a Golden Age of Hollywood feel to it. Is that something you’re interested in and did it influence the book in other ways as well?

A.C.: Yes. I mean, I love the way a lot of those movies are filmed, the ways they play with light and shade, but I also love the romanticism and the storytelling. There’s a sort of stagey way that people talk, a theatricality to it, and I love that, too. So, those kind of things were definitely things I was going to emulate.

ZACK: The love story set agains the war drop is always such a poignant mix. I was curious about your thoughts on that, what do you think makes that such a rich and powerful backdrop for a love story, this idea of war coming or ongoing oppressive war?

A.C.: It’s the highest stakes, right? It’s the highest stakes for the people who are most important to you. We’re talking about love, romantic love, but I think it’s also true for friendships and family as well. When those people and those relationships are endangered by corrupt systems of power, it really makes you reflect on what matters to you and hopefully act on preserving that and projecting that. Whatever you need to do. It’s the extremes, life and death, love and hate — it brings it out.

ZACK: I also wanted to ask about your alternate world history, which I thought was really compelling and well-done. Can you talk about how you built that out and if there are any pieces of world-building that didn’t make it directly into the book? It all felt so real.

A.C.: I’m so glad to hear that. The initial inspiration was historical records and pilot autobiographies from the Golden Age of Flight, which is the 1920s to the 1930s, roughly. The setting draws heavily on the routes that those pilots flew during those times, but I chose to obscure the accuracy or the exact historical times and places, kind of making an alternate timeline to give myself the freedom to put the people and characters into places you maybe wouldn’t expect people who look like them or have their backgrounds to be.

I constructed the world in a way that would let me examine things like freedom of travel, survival under a corrupting power, and the enduring bonds between people in this setting that I love so much. A lot of it takes place in settings based on Italy and Morocco in North Africa. AVO, the corrupt power in this world, something that maybe doesn’t come across so much in the comic is its Italian supremacist. It’s very Latin-based, which is why a lot of characters have Latin names. Part of that society was inspired by my experience as an Asian immigrant and changing your name, or changing your name slightly to make it easier for people to say or more palatable to the government that’s receiving you.

But there’s variants, right. How much control you have over your name depends on how much power you have, over yourself, over your paperwork.

ZACK: A lot of the architecture looked distinctly Moroccan and North African. Did you do a lot of research into that as well as into the aviation components? It seemed like that might have been a really complicated facet of the book. You captured flight so well and I’m assuming you haven’t actually flown a plane in wartime.

A.C.: [laughs] No. It all goes back to those pilot biographies and this really thick aircraft encyclopedia that I have. I drew inspiration from the different designs and from the different countries that were producing aircraft. This was a time of “peace”, the ‘20s through ‘30s, but obviously the different countries were competing with each other and trying to anticipate different military uses for the aircraft, which would effect the way the planes looked. I was looking at all those things.

As far as the setting goes, I just really loved researching these places that pilots traversed. They talk about it while they’re travelling in their log books. They talk about them in this very romantic and adventuresome way, but I wanted to go beyond that and research the actual architecture and cultures of the regions to incorporate that into the story.

ZACK: I thought it really paid off well. It just feels like so much attention went into this book, from the small details to the overarching story. It just feels like a very thoughtful and focused book, especially for something this long. I was curious about that, because a part of the book was published a few years back. What was the process like building out this book and did your vision change at all?

A.C.: The novella version of Eighty Days is really just the first 80 pages of the comic from Jay’s point of view, but I had written that and drawn that as a comic always with the intention of continuing it as a larger story. He gets into trouble in that story, and I always knew that I wanted to pull him out of it.

It wasn’t surprising to me in the sense that I knew I had to go deeper into the world and into the struggles these characters were facing, and that would involve going into the system of power in the world and that would involve changing the narrator, because each chapter in the story takes us to a different narrator’s point of view. I knew I had to get deeper into the world through the changing voices, but it did surprise me just how different and distinct those voices became from each other, from the way that the characters narrate events in their lives to the way panel layouts convey what they’re experiencing. It all became very distinct as it developed, and that was fun and unexpected. But it was always meant to be this long, epic thing.

ZACK: So, last question — this feels like a very powerful debut and the natural next question is what are you working on next?

A.C.: I have a freelance comics project where I’m not the writer, I’m just the artist, coming out next year, but it’s TBA, so I won’t say more about that just yet. For my next original graphic novel written and drawn by me, I’m in the concept process of a little something right now. I’m not sure where it’s going to take me just yet, but I’m excited for it and it’s definitely coming — hopefully faster than seven years [laughs].

Eighty Days, Graphic Novel

Eighty Days
Writer/Artist: A.C. Esguerra
Publisher: BOOM! Studios - Archaia
"Map A Course, Arrive Safe Home. That's The Measure Of Your Achievement." A pilot wants nothing more than to fly. Or so he thought, until he crosses paths with a mysterious thief whose tricks draw him into unchartered territory and new adventure. In a life where the truth changes as quickly as clouds in the sky, the pilot must decide for himself what freedom really means. Award-winning cartoonist A.C. Esguerra presents an unforgettable love letter to flight, the quest for freedom and the greatest adventure of all -- love.
Price: $29.99
More Info: Eighty Days

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Zack Quaintance is a tech reporter by day and freelance writer by night/weekend. He Tweets compulsively about storytelling and comics as Comics Bookcase.