By Zack Quaintance — Today’s Kickstarter Interview sees writer Morgan Rosenblum (who is also an editor with Heavy Metal) talking about his new project, Winds of Numa Sera, an elaborate fantasy story that uses real history to construct a world that feels vivid and authentic. This is a very ambitious project with gorgeous art, and I had a chance to discuss it with Morgan of late. You can read our conversation below, and then when you’re done, you can head over to the Winds of Numa Sera campaign page to back it.

Enjoy!

Morgan Rosenblum Interview

ZACK QUAINTANCE: So, your co-creator Jonny Handler…you two are lifelong friends. How was the collaboration process working with someone you’re so close to?

MORGAN ROSENBLUM: We refer to ourselves as wombmates with a ‘w’, because our parents actually met in Lamaze class when they were pregnant with us. We were in our respective mothers’ wombs, and we were friends before we were even born.

Obviously, working with such a close friend there’s a trust level there, a true friendship. You never have sneaking suspicion someone is out to get more of a cut than you are or trying to put one over on you like you might have in a normal business setting. This is someone I grew up playing Nerf gun wars with, RPG video games, and Magic The Gathering. We also read comics together. Whatever it is, our whole experience growing up and taking in sci-fi fantasy content, we experienced together. So, we took what influenced us and we built the Winds of Numa Sera series.

ZACK: One of the things that struck me right away about the book was the intricacy of the world building. What was the process like for that, logistically? What was the process before you started scripting?

MORGAN: We spent a lot of time building the world and its cultures. We don’t just go right into writing a story from one character’s perspective. We think a lot about where is this character from and what is it like in their world. What is their world like and what is their culture, and inside of that culture, where are they in class. Were they poor and wealthy.

With science fiction and fantasy, you can do whatever you want, but you have to establish rules and make sure those rules are consistent. So we started with a map, and when you start to read the series you’ll see there are a lot of parallels to our own world and to our history. There’s a lot of political and religious doctrine inspired by our culture and other cultures. We wanted to find a nice balance between a period piece and hard fantasy.

Something I personally loved about Game of Thrones — before the last two seasons of television — the series started really grounded. It just felt like a medieval period piece for a while beside the opening scene with the White Walkers. You don’t get your first taste of magic until the end of Season One. We did something similar to that.

ZACK: I did notice there’s an interest in real history present in how the book is present, and that a child ruler ascending is a catalyst for a story. I feel like within history that’s always a thing that guarantees chaos. So, how much real history found its way into this book and how did it influence the story?

MORGAN: Winds of Numa Sera, the title itself, the winds is symbolizing a change in direction and a change of power. You know Chicago is the Windy City? The term Windy City is not because it’s actually windy, it’s a political thing and it has to do with blowing hot air. That’s a big present theme throughout our series. So, when you have a 12-year-old girl who rises to power because her father dies an untimely death, she’s guided — or I should say manipulated by — the high council, which is five of the wisest and most experienced people at their respective trades.

Unlike Joffrey in Game of Thrones who did his own thing, when we first meet her, she’s overwhelmed and wants to be respect. The High Council does a good job of manipulating her and getting her to believe she’s coming up with the ideas herself when they present information to her. Her character arc as we being the story is her being a puppet and becoming her own woman.

There’s four main characters in our story, and the big theme is making your own fate and becoming your own person, resisting the persuasion of what they’re supposed to be doing, of making their own decisions and suffering consequences too, because not all the decisions will be good ones.

ZACK: The art is really impressive. How did you put the team together?

MORGAN: For the graphic novel, the lead illustrator for the first installment is Eduard Petrovich, an artist who has worked with Marvel and BOOM!. He’s extremely talented, and we love his sequential storytelling. He’s amazing with it and teaches classes on it. We had him do the first book. For the rest of the series, Eduardo Mello, he takes over from chapter two to the finish line. He’s his understudy in the process, and we’re playing with the idea of bringing on a third artist.

There are flashback scenes and we want to bring on a completely different art style you haven’t seen yet for those. The colorist is Valentina Taddeo, and she’s great.

ZACK: So, last question…what do you see as the scope of this project?

MORGAN: We’ve planned for seasons, with each season being a full graphic novel. The first volume, or season one, is eight chapters and 232 pages for the book. On Kickstarter, our goal is to get to 232 pages, but we’re just funding the second chapter at the moment. We didn’t want to have a $50,000 goal and come up short.

Winds of Numa Sera

Winds of Numa Sera
Writers: Morgan Rosenblum and Jonny Handler
Artists: Eduard Petrovich and Eduardo Mello
Colorist: Valentina Taddeo
Letterer: Voodoo Bownz
Character Concept Design: Andrea De Dominicis
In the Land of Ethera, you either reign, or hail. Rule or be ruled. The Empire of Numa Sera holds sovereignty over the continent, but after enduring the Great War, the “One True Kingdom” now finds itself vulnerable, as other nations seek to challenge its supremacy.
Back It Now: Winds of Numa Sera on Kickstarter

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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.