The Principles of Necromancy, with Writer Jackson Lanzing
This audio interview was conducted by Chris Doucher, Editor-in-Chief, Writer and Comic Panel Moderator for GeekNerdNet. (Image credits to: Jackson Lanzing and GeekNerdNet)
Writer Jackson Lanzing at Calgary Expo 2024. (image credit: Chris Doucher/GeekNedrNet)
Writer, Jackson Lanzing, chatted with me about the new creator-owned book; THE PRINCIPLES OF NECROMANCY (issue 1 out now) by him, his #HiveMind writing partner Collin Kelly, and artist Eamon Winkle. Not only is this their first creator-owned book in 8 years, it’s also their first horror book. The series is published by newcomer, MAGMA COMIX. After reading the first issue, I’ll tell you this: It’s so damn good and brutally unsettling—in the very best, and messed up way possible. Bring on issue 2 (releasing May 15)! When it comes to Lanzing and Kelly, they have worked on some of the biggest titles in comics, including Star Trek, NYX (releasing July 24/24), Captain America: Sentinel of Liberty, Batman Beyond: Neo-Year, Batman Beyond: Neo, Guardians of the Galaxy and so many other amazing works by this incredibly busy and talented writing team.
Everything these best friends work on comes out of a conversation about what they love and what they think will be interesting, shocking, or unique. Once they get to the point of agreeing on a story they both love, they break it down page-by-page and write from there. It’s a really cool process which Lanzing elaborates on during the interview. Sometimes Lanzing will write the first half of a book and Kelly will write the second half, or vice versa. These two are a well-oiled machine, but this machine is also fuelled by music. Lanzing says this about what gets them into the proper headspace when jumping between various titles:
"The other magic sauce is playlists. As we bounce from playlist to playlist, that helps us figure out how do we calibrate tone…writing something like Star Trek is very different than writing something like Clayface One Bad Day, it’s very different than writing something like Guardians…”
Lanzing mentions how they like to do something weird and different and that’s where THE PRINCIPLES OF NECROMANCY comes in. The premise is the story of a world where there’s no magic, and it’s full of people doing horrible things to one another.
“The closest thing there is to magic in this universe is medicine. The doctors in this universe are wizards. And, like wizards there’s a limited number of them—there’s only 20 of them. They all belong to the city hospital. They’re all in the ‘civilized part of the world.’ and they have dedicated themselves to curing all of mankind’s ilsl with effectively, hundreds of years of advanced medicine. They have our kind of medical medicine, but live in this medieval fantasy universe. Which makes them very powerful,” Lanzing said.
And, if that gets you wanting to read the book, just wait until you listen to Lanzing reveal more details about their main character: The youngest doctor, Doctor Eyes. You better believe he’s through the roof creepy and scary as he heads out into the world and tries to cure death itself. Hence, the world’s first necromancer writing the principles of his new medical field, and the things he does to achieve this. When it comes to the art in this series, they teamed up with new artist Eamon Winkle, this being his first sequential work. And damn, you wouldn’t know it by looking at it. Okay, now go ahead and hit play below and enjoy the full audio interview with Jackson Lanzing. Thanks, Jackson!