By Zack Quaintance — Today marks the release of The Many Deaths of Laila Starr #1, a new original series from writer Ram V. and artist Filipe Andrade. The book — like other entries in Ram V’s growing catalog — is set in Mumbai, weaving touches of magical realism into a narrative centered on the powers behind life and death. It’s a truly singular comic, thanks to that concept as well as the stunning artwork from Andrade that gives it all life.

In advance of this (officially excellent) first issue, I recently had a chance to talk to Ram and Filipe over Zoom. You can check out our conversation below…

INTERVIEW: Ram V. and Filipe Andrade on THE MANY DEATHS OF LAILA STARR

ZACK QUAINTANCE: I’m going to start on the heaviest possible note and ask you about your own thoughts and relationships on and with live and death, and how they factored into the creation of this comic?

RAM V.: My motivation behind writing this probably starts from a time when I was trying to write stories as a newish, amateur writer. Each time I would come across the subject of death, I would find myself thinking, ‘You’ve never lost anyone. You’ve never experienced anything of that gravity,’ and I suppose as I got older, I lost friends, people I cared about, and family.

I always looked at death as this fascinating, distant thing that was in the periphery of my life, but could never touch me because I was a kid. I almost felt immortal at that time, and I think all of us do when we’re a little younger. Writing about it now is in someway therapeutic. I’m close to 40 now, looking back at that 8 year old, thinking about life, death, mortality, and immortality in those terms. Now I realize death was this ever-present part of my life, even as a kid, it’s just I never recognized it as such.

While that doesn’t necessarily tie into the story of this book, it’s ever present. Death is always present on these pages in one way or another. It’s in the hospital, and in future issues, we’ll see it present in other places. If you look at my past work with Mumbai as the backdrop to my stories, here Death in Mumbai is the backdrop to the story.

ZACK: What about you Filipe? I thought the imagery around death was totally original, which seems like a challenge as an artist…

FiLIPE ANDRADE: The script from Ram setup really well the feel for these things. My take for these was a little bit in between Uptight and Big Lebowski, with the behavior and the acting really exaggerated. The death is really colorful instead of being a shadowy thing that we see in the Western world. It was kind of that kind of sense, giving a little bit of life to this situation and these characters.

ZACK: One of the choices that I liked a lot was at times the book took almost a bureaucratic approach to death, and at some points in the book, death is literally a job. Can you talk about that choice and where the inspiration for that came from?

RAM: It’s a very cultural thing, a very Indian thing, just because it’s a country of 1.2-plus billion people. At some point, everyone in the course of their lives thinks about death in these very bureaucratic, by-the-numbers terms. I’m not sure how else to describe that sensation. You stop seeing people and you start seeing numbers. I wanted to tap into that, how it feels to come from a culture like that, and how strange and how odd that is.

I was partly inspired by a short film that a friend of mine had done. He’s an animator based out of India called Somnath Pal. He did a film called Death of a Father, which is a very Kafka-esque look at how bureaucratic the whole process is. You’ve lost someone you’ve loved your whole life, who you’ve looked up to, and now all of a a sudden the whole process after they’ve died to cremate them just becomes this massive, Kafka-esque step ladder, if you will. I wanted to tap into that a little bit and look at it from the Gods’ perspectives.

What is it like when you’re an office that deals with 1.2 billion people living and dying.

ZACK: Can I ask you both about the collaborative relationship on this book? I felt like this comic had a real melody, that there was poetry to the prose and the imagery danced with it. How closely did you collaborate and what was the process like generally?

RAM: I’ve got great things to say about Filipe. The moment I looked at his art, I knew he was the perfect person for his book. I’d not worked with anyone who has a style quite like Filipe. There’s so much life and energy. My real concern when we first did the script was, Does he get what I’m trying to do? I remember we played phone tag for a little bit, and then we finally setup a call.

Within two minutes, I was like, ‘Okay! This guy completely gets what we want to do with the story and he gets the vibe of the story!’ I was very very delighted to discover that Filipe had actually traveled to India. He was already familiar with the place. If not the specific places, at least the life and the feel of it, which I think comes through from page one. You get that this is not the city you live in. This is Mumbai. This is someplace you haven’t been to.

FILIPE: For me it was I knew Ram because of Grafity’s Wall, just because of the images and artwork. When I received the proposal, it was something like perfect, the timing and the project itself. Like Ram said, I went to India. I used to travel a lot, and I’ve been to different places. This was a little bit my mojo and the way I got inspired. In this really weird year, this was the perfect project because the setup was really far away from my thoughts. It allowed me to dive in again to my photos and some other references.

Our connection — even if we never knew each other before — I think we connect really well, the images with his words. It’s like you said, a little bit of a ballet, like dancing. For me as an artist, I work with some other script writers, and I’ve never felt this so instantly. I was really happy for it.

RAM: I’m glad to hear! [laughs] We will have that dance.

ZACK: This is a bit of an obligatory first issue question, but can you talk about the scope for this series?

RAM: From my perspective, I think this has the widest scope of the things I've done. I would go so far as to say that if you’ve read issue #1, you’ve gotten the thematic sense of where the story is going to go, but you don’t have the linear sense of where it’s going to go. Issue #2 doesn’t necessarily pick up where you think and go where you think it’s going to go. I truly wanted to write a story that would talk about life and death, with the kind of scope those ideas have, sometimes looking at life from the perspective of tiny inanimate things that have a short lifespan, like a cigarette perhaps. Or looking at life from the perspective from something that has lived and existed for hundreds of years, like a Chinese temple in the middle of Mumbai.

Those are the kinds of POVs and stories that we’re trying to tell with this one. At least from my perspective watching Filipe’s art kind of play with those different ideas in each issue — we’re a few issues ahead — I can certainly say that the art scope dances nicely with the writing.

ZACK: Filipe, what has been a highlight for you visually from the illustrations that you’ve done?

FILIPE: I’m not sure what I can say, but I will say that as I’ve advanced through the book, I’m more involved in the book and actually liking it even more. When I look at issue #1, it feels old compared to what I’m doing now. Like Ram was saying, it’s not predictable where this story will get in the other issues. It’s giving me a lot of opportunities to draw a lot of highlights.

ZACK: Before we wrap up, is there anything else either of you wanted to add about the book, or anything you’d tell readers as they pickup the first copy?

RAM: I would just say if you’ve read my previous work and thought you’d seen everything there is to see about Mumbai in my work, this will surprise you even further.

FILIPE: This is a really interesting book. I’m not just saying that artistically; I’m saying that about the whole package. It will be really good in the end.

Read our full review of The Many Deaths of Laila Starr #1!

Read more great interviews with comics creators!

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