By Zack Quaintance — Around these parts, the release of any new Vault Comics series is an event. I mean, the publisher had four titles on my personal Top 25 Best Comics of 2021 (three in the top 10, at that). This week’s We Ride Titans #1 is no exception. Out tomorrow (which was Jan. 12, for any of you out there reading this from the future), the book is an excellent blend of hard-hitting robot vs. kaiju action with poignant familial relationship dynamics.

Ahead of the series debut, We Ride Titans writer Tres Dean took some time out to answer our questions about the book. You can find those answers below…enjoy!

INTERVIEW: Tres Dean talks new Vault Comic, WE RIDE TITANS

ZACK QUAINTANCE: I really liked the way interpersonal relationships entwined with the mech-on-kaiju battle action in this book. Conceptually, can you talk about how one informed the other during the writing process?

TRES DEAN: I think anybody who's ever had to take care of a family member in any capacity can relate to feeling as though they're shouldering the heaviest burden they'll ever encounter. So on one hand, yeah, big robots and giant monsters duking it out will always be one of my favorite things in the world. On the other, I think it's actually a great externalization of that kind of pressure, which Kit and Dej Hobbs are very much under coming from the family that they do.

ZACK: I also really liked how life went on and moved past seemingly-constant kaiju-mech battles. What inspired that idea?

TRES: Man, honestly I just didn't want to have to worry about the in-world ramifications of these kaiju battles. It's been so fascinating over the last, I dunno, ten years or so to watch blockbuster movies try to reckon with the actuality of constantly depicting massive metropolitan areas destroyed by fights between armies and superheroes and aliens, all that. The desire to avoid running up against that tension in this story is largely what led to most of the worldbuilding - this is, as you've noted, a world in which kaiju have existed for ages. It doesn't really matter where they came from. What matters to this story is that they've been around long enough that society has restructured itself around them. There are shelters at the ready for citizens when all hell breaks loose (which is not unique to this book - Pacific Rim featured something similar as have countless other kaiju stories), the infrastructure of cities has led to spacious streets so that skyscrapers aren't constantly getting toppled. I like the idea of humanity responding to the existence of giant monsters with making them less giant.

ZACK: I’ve also been a fan of Sebastian’s for a good while. What was the collaboration process like for this book, specifically for the monster and robotic designs?

TRES: Sebastian is a superstar, dude. He's been attached to this book pretty much since its inception when I tweeted about looking for an artist for a mech book and came across his work. The design process was pretty seamless once we got on the same page about the vibe of the thing. I didn't come in with a lot of rough designs in mind, just a couple of points of reference - like, I definitely saw Titans as resembling Pacific Rim's Jaegers more than Gundams, if that makes sense. We wanted to create a world in which Titan Riders are like Formula One drivers with a dash of extreme sports athletes - a world full of grimy, lived-in machinery, oil, and fumes. As soon as we clarified that general vibe Sebastian just worked his magic.

ZACK: Looking ahead, what are your hopes for the scope of this book?

TRES: Honestly, right now I just want to get the thing finished, haha. We Ride Titans, to me, has always been about the Hobbs family first and the world of Titans second. If I have hopes for the scope it's only that the character's journeys don't get ground up in the literal heavy machinery of the world.

ZACK: Finally, what are some of your favorite kaiju and/or mech stories, in any medium?

TRES: My love of giant robots and kaiju began with Power Rangers and it is where it will always run strongest. That world remains one of my favorite pieces of entertainment of any kind, ever, period.

We Ride Titans #1
Writer: Tres Dean
Artist: Sebastián Píriz
Colorist: Dee Cunniffe
Letterer: Jim Campbell
Publisher: Vault Comics
Kaiju hit hard. Family hits harder.
Trying to keep your family from imploding is a tall order. Kit Hobbs is about to find out it's an even taller order when that family has been piloting the Titan that protects New Hyperion from kaiju for generations. Between a spiraling brother, a powder keg of a father, and a whole bunch of twenty-story monsters, she's got her work cut out for her.

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.