Close Menu

    GVN Talking Comics Interview: 14 Of Iron Circus Comics ”Perfect Crime Party’s” Imaginative “Culprits”

    Banner featuring "Talking Comics Interview: Creators for Iron Circus Comics' 'Perfect Crime Party'" with photos of eleven creators: Amy Chase, Caitlin Like, Axur Eneas, Chuck Harp, Henry Barajas, Nick Mamatas, Luis Santamarina, David Brothers, Erin Roseberry, Mariah McCourt, and Rikki Tikki Tavi.

    If you’re familiar with the classic board game Clue, you’ll know that each player assumes the role of one of the game’s primary suspects. In this “case,” we’ve gathered 14 of the imaginative “culprits” behind Iron Circus Comics’ latest anthology, Perfect Crime Party, now available on BackerKit. Each of our “suspects” played an integral part in bringing this exciting anthology to life and graciously responded to our inquiries—no bright lights or interrogation necessary. Now, let’s introduce some of the creative talents from the Perfect Crime Party lineup, starting with their artistic origins:

    Beginnings

    GVN: Thank you for sharing some of your time with us in advance of this exciting new Anthology. Let us start with a bit of your beginnings. When did you take an interest in comics in general and whose work inspired you to consider either writing or drawing in that field?

     

    A double exposure image of a woman's face and a mystical dragon, with blue and red lighting effects.Writer – Amy Chase: Thank you for spotlighting this exciting project! My interest in comics grew slowly. First, as a child who grew up on the classic Teen Titans animated series, and then it solidified around 2012 when Marvel Comics offered a lot of titles corresponding to the characters in the first Avengers film. I didn’t consider writing comics of my own until I spent time working in a comic store in college, being exposed to so many different voices and ways to tell a story. I’d probably say Kelly Sue DeConnick and Matt Fraction were most influential at that time for me.

    A person with a beard and mustache wearing a blue and gray striped hoodie stands outside in a park with trees and buildings in the background.Creator – Axur Eneas: I was very lucky to have a mom who supported my love for the arts and gave me a ton of different comics growing up. I was inspired by a varied type of stories growing up, like Batman, Asterix, Mafalda, Peanuts, El Santos, Garfield, etc. She always was supportive, even if having a career in comic books and animation was a risky gamble.

     

    A person with shoulder-length brown hair and bangs is smiling at the camera. They are wearing a striped shirt and red lipstick, sitting in front of a patterned curtain.Creator – Caitlin Like: Hi, I’m Caitlin Like, I’m a cartoonist and writer from Portland, Oregon! I drew the story “Sincerely, A Lady” for the anthology.

    I’ve been drawing comics on and off since I discovered Captain Underpants as a kid, so I’ve been invested in the medium in some way since 1997. My interest really took off when I discovered CLAMP, though! I’d never seen comics like that before, and I became fixated on drawing something that beautiful too. Another big interest point was W.IT.C.H., so I became really invested in the magical girl genre when I wasn’t seeing something I wanted in the traditional superhero genre.

    A person wearing a flat cap and a buttoned shirt stares ahead with a neutral expression in a monochrome photo.Writer – Chuck Harp: I’ve had a love affair with comics since I was young, and instantly started to create my own. As I grew and realized my strengths, and enjoyment, were in writing. So, I wrapped my focus in perfecting that skill. I’ve been influenced by so many great comic book writers like Howard Mackie, Roy Thomas, and Jim Starlin, just to name a few.

     

    A person with short hair and glasses wearing a gray knit sweater, sitting against a plain white background.Writer/Editor – David Brothers: I’m David Brothers, and I’ve been into comics since I was a kid, and eventually grew up to be a comics critic. The people who inspired me to write comics the most were friends like Emma Ríos (Anzuelo, Pretty Deadly), Caleb Goellner (Ghost Cage), and Nick Dragotta (Absolute Batman), who said they saw something in my prose that would be fun for comics, too.

     

    A person with short curly hair holds a bouquet of flowers and stands in front of a wall covered with comic strips.Creator – Erin Roseberry: When I was in middle school in the early 2000s, I started reading webcomics, after discovering them through my interests in art and writing. At the time I lived in a location where I had little access to comics through stores and libraries and the idea that all these people were making and sharing comics online, and I could too, absolutely blew my mind. It inspired me to start writing and drawing my own comics, and that’s how I got started! It’s especially wild that one of the webcomics I was reading was Spike’s Templar, Arizona, and now the publisher Spike founded is publishing me.

    A person wearing glasses with a beard and mustache, dressed in a denim jacket and black cap, stands in front of a leafy green background.Writer – Henry Barajas: I was lucky. My parents were always trying to get rich quickly. They loved the Antique Roadshow and were big thrifters. We would sell second-hand household items on the weekends at the Swapmeet until my parents became a duo income home. But the ’90s was a big speculator time for selling comics, and they would buy boxes of the stuff in hopes that bad Image and Malibu comics were going to be worth anything. They had me appraise the books with Wizard or Comic Book Price Guide magazines. But they didn’t think I would read the stuff. My relationship with the medium started when I was five years old, and I responded to it viscerally.

     

    Illustration of a cracked skull wearing a crown, all in yellow with a black background.Cartoonist – Illuminated: I’ve been reading and drawing comics since I was a little kid, I have piles of old papers rife with doodles and stories. The point when I realized it could be a job rather than a simple hobby came in my early teens, when I started reading Frank Miller’s Sin City. It was the first book where I truly became aware of the creative voice behind it, and what that role entailed.

     

    Young person with curly hair and glasses wearing a blue patterned shirt, smiling and standing against a plain white background.Cartoonist – John Konrad: Like a lot of cartoonists, I’ve been reading comics since I was a kid, particularly superhero comics and newspaper strips. It took a while for me to discover independent comics. One day, I stumbled across an issue of Optic Nerve in a zine shop and it just clicked— I knew that this was the kind of work I wanted to be creating. After that, I started taking the craft more seriously and creating more original work.

     

    A man with a beard holds two magazines, partially covering his face. The magazine on the left has a red and black cover, and the one on the right has a green and black cover.Creator – Luis Santamarina: Since I was a kid, I’ve been a fan of comics. I started with Asterix and then got hooked on Vertigo. But what really marked me (and you can see it in my drawings) were the 90s cartoons, like Ren & Stimpy and Liquid Television.

     

     

    Close-up of a person with short, light-colored hair, wearing a dark purple shirt, and looking directly at the camera. The background is a plain wall and part of a dark-colored furniture piece.Creator/Editor – Mariah McCourt: I think I was thirteen or so when I took a serious interest in comics. I was really drawn to the covers first, I think. Especially Dave McKean, whose work looked so different than any other comics in the 90’s. From there I began reading a lot of Vertigo books and SLG. I guess I was a stereotypical little proto-goth girl, but for me it was really eye opening to see what people were doing with the medium. I’d always loved reading and illustrating, but comics takes those things and tells stories in a way that’s completely unique.

    A man with short gray hair, wearing glasses and a black double-breasted coat, smiles in front of a textured red wall.Writer/Editor – Nick Mamatas: Surely, like everyone I was given comics here and there as a child and got into them. I grew up in the late 1970s and 80s, so lived through the big boom of comic shops and was into various Marvel comics, Alan Moore, etc. I did find a few odder titles I liked as well. Moore is a big one; I also loved the art of Bill Sienkiewicz, thought that was at first an acquired taste. Ann Nocenti and Peter B. Gillis were big for me when I was reading hero comics. Later I got into Eddie Campbell’s Alec series, Joe Matt, and people like that.

    Illustration of a person with glasses, short hair, and a slight smile, depicted in blue and white outlines with a teal background element.Artist/Animator – Reetta Linjama: At the time that I grew up in Finland it was more of a comics-reading country than I ever realized. Every home we hung out in had collections of Moomins, Franco-Belgian staples, stacks of the weekly Donald Duck comic books and the Italian-drawn Scrooge McDuck pocketbooks — read by kids and parents alike. At my library I was introduced to Rumiko Takahashi, Elfquest, a ton of adult European comics and finally the one writer/artist ’trapping’ me to keep creating in the medium: Terry Moore.

     

    A person with short, tousled hair smiles at the camera while wearing a red T-shirt.Creator – Tayson Martindale: A huge reason I’m making comics today is because of my Grade 3 teacher, Mrs. Kokatylo. She encouraged us to write and draw stories and every month we’d have an ‘Author’s Day’ and share our stories with the class. Some of my favourite creators are Skottie Young, John Romita Jr. (his Spidey stuff is my childhood), Jerzy Drozd, and Richard Thompson (creator of the EXCELLENT comic strip ‘Cul de Sac’).

     

    Favorite Genres

    GVN: As you began to develop your craft, was there any specific genre that appealed to you more than another or were you open to whatever opportunities came your way?

    A double exposure image of a woman's face and a mystical dragon, with blue and red lighting effects.Amy Chase: I’ve done a little bit of a lot of genres at this point, but my favorite tends to be horror/supernatural for the ways in which you can break the rules of reality and play with the metering of fear across physical pages. At first, though, I was certain I’d be writing fantasy and sci-fi stuff most overall and had a lot of swords and sorcery in my stories. Hilariously, crime has been one of the harder genres for me to work in because I sometimes feel like I’m not smart or defiant enough to envision crimes and their logical conclusions.

    A person with a beard and mustache wearing a blue and gray striped hoodie stands outside in a park with trees and buildings in the background.Axur Eneas: It took time for me to figure out my style. I was always inclined to comedy comic books and animation, but I wasn’t confident in my skills. Luckily others saw something special in my art and took me to the path of comic books and animation for children. I enjoy making funny drawings for kids all over the world.

     

     

    A person with shoulder-length brown hair and bangs is smiling at the camera. They are wearing a striped shirt and red lipstick, sitting in front of a patterned curtain.Caitlin Like: Most of my professional work is in middle grade, as in comics for late elementary through junior high kids, in the historical fiction/historical fantasy and historical education genres! My independent work tends to be aimed at adults, but I’m heavily invested in the historical fiction/historical fantasy as a genre across the board. Not comics, but I read a lot of American Girl books as a kid, and also the Great Illustrated Classics versions of Victorian gothic novels, which were contemporary horror and science fiction at the time, but now feel akin to historical fiction. I really enjoy drawing costumes and playing with the limitations. Doing historical fantasy as a niche in webcomics and minicomics definitely led to me finding work in the historical education genre!

    A person wearing a flat cap and a buttoned shirt stares ahead with a neutral expression in a monochrome photo.Chuck Harp: I’m definitely open to new challenges and genres to expand my skillset, but I always gravitated toward the darker, street level stories. Crime, horror, and of course those anti-heroes the 1990s crafted so well.

     

     

    A person with short hair and glasses wearing a gray knit sweater, sitting against a plain white background.David Brothers: Crime comics are the best, and always at the heart of what I want to write. They encompass a lot, from brutishness to sensitivity, romance to horror. I can’t get enough of them, from just about any era, too. You can even put superheroes into them, if you want.

     

     

    A person with short curly hair holds a bouquet of flowers and stands in front of a wall covered with comic strips.Erin Roseberry: I’ve always been most interested in speculative fiction like fantasy and sci-fi. In a comic you can draw anything you want, it doesn’t have to exist in the real world, so why not go all the way?

     

     

     

    A person wearing glasses with a beard and mustache, dressed in a denim jacket and black cap, stands in front of a leafy green background.Henry Barajas: It’s interesting to think about now because I would and still read various types of books, watch all kinds of movies, and listen to many different genres. But comics were always superhero focused. It wasn’t until I started buying comics from my dear friend and former retailer connect, Charlie Harris, who pushed me to read other kinds of genres which gave me the confidence to write comics. I love noir and crime shows, so that’s what I have always gravitated towards. I’m not someone who gets a lot of work offered, so I have had to carve out my own place in this industry. But I’m lucky that I’ve had a few opportunities like Perfect Crime Party to flex and tell a story like Joke Thief.

    Illustration of a cracked skull wearing a crown, all in yellow with a black background.Illuminated: Rather than a specific genre it’s a specific tone: I very much like the comedic and the surreal. I like making people laugh, and most people seem to find my stuff funny. So as long as I am allowed to give something a comedic spin, I have no problem with the genre. I don’t want to calcify myself in that niche, but for now, it’s a good comfort zone.

     

    Young person with curly hair and glasses wearing a blue patterned shirt, smiling and standing against a plain white background.John Konrad: I’ve always been drawn to comedy and horror in particular. Both of these genres rely heavily on pacing, and the comics medium allows you a lot of flexibility with pacing, which I love. My early comic work was all comedy, and that’s continued into this anthology with my story “Darling Doesn’t Know.”

     

     

    A man with a beard holds two magazines, partially covering his face. The magazine on the left has a red and black cover, and the one on the right has a green and black cover.Luis Santamarina: I’m open to any opportunity, but when it comes to stories, I’m all about fantasy and sci-fi. The crazier, weird and more original, the better!

     

     

    Close-up of a person with short, light-colored hair, wearing a dark purple shirt, and looking directly at the camera. The background is a plain wall and part of a dark-colored furniture piece.Mariah McCourt: I actually edited comics for a long time before writing them. I was drawn to horror, fantasy, sci-fi, and any combinations therein the most. Genre fiction is my happy place. My first comics writing gig was co-writing TRUE BLOOD at IDW while I was also editing other titles and working on collected editions. I was terrified but I’m extremely grateful they gave me the opportunity. I’ve always been open to writing in different genres but I usually end up somewhere in spooky town!

     

    A man with short gray hair, wearing glasses and a black double-breasted coat, smiles in front of a textured red wall.Nick Mamatas: I mostly write prose fiction, and genre short stories—I’ve been published in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, Best American Mystery Stories, McSweeney’s, Asimov’s Science Fiction, many anthologies collecting Lovecraftian fiction, etc. I’ve always been highly interested in comics but am utterly unable to draw, so could never really break in. I was thrilled to connect with artist Jules Valera and create a script!

     

    Illustration of a person with glasses, short hair, and a slight smile, depicted in blue and white outlines with a teal background element.Reetta Linjama: I’m interested in visual storytelling in any genre but I can’t help but put a little humour into all my work. Character performance and humour are my combined focus, and any genre can have those.

     

     

    A person with short, tousled hair smiles at the camera while wearing a red T-shirt.Tayson Martindale: My first window into comics as a storytelling form was the book collections of newspaper comic strips (Garfield, Fox Trot, Get Fuzzy, Calvin and Hobbes, etc.), then I got into superhero comics, and that eventually led me to graphic novels. Comics are my favourite way to tell a story.

     

     

    Joining Perfect Crime Party

    GVN: You are contributing to another great anthology from the great folks at Iron Circus Comics in “Perfect Crime Party.” How did this collaboration come about and what was it about the premise of light-hearted crime capers that appealed to you?

    A double exposure image of a woman's face and a mystical dragon, with blue and red lighting effects.Amy Chase: I’ve actually pitched to numerous Iron Circus anthologies in the past with no success, so I’ve always tried to keep a pulse on their latest projects. When “Perfect Crime Party” was announced, absolute rising star artist and writer Tango actually reached out to me to see if we wanted to combine our love of vampires with a heist story for a pitch. I couldn’t say yes fast enough – the light-hearted anthology theme allowed us to create something low-stakes (pun intended) and full of heart (pun also intended) that showcased our love of monsters and their own humanity.

    A person with a beard and mustache wearing a blue and gray striped hoodie stands outside in a park with trees and buildings in the background.Axur Eneas: Ryan Estrada pitched me the idea to do a story with him about a heist for a movie inside the vault of a movie studio. It was inspired by the then recent cancellations and tax write-offs in Warner Bros, like Batgirl and Coyote vs ACME. I’m the creator of a Mexican Cartoon Network show named Toontorial, so I actually was close to a lot of artists and producers who lost their job during the Warner-Discovery merging, so the story that Ryan pitched me hit close to my personal experience.

    A person with shoulder-length brown hair and bangs is smiling at the camera. They are wearing a striped shirt and red lipstick, sitting in front of a patterned curtain.Caitlin Like: I’ve worked with Kel McDonald, our editor, before on another anthology “How to Pet Your Werewolf” and wanted to work with them again if I could! Also, this anthology gave me the chance to finally work with my writer Molly Muldoon- we share a similar love of historical fiction in the “what people ate and wore” historical interest category. The opportunity to do a small scale Holmesian mystery was too good to pass up.

     

    A person wearing a flat cap and a buttoned shirt stares ahead with a neutral expression in a monochrome photo.Chuck Harp: I’ve been following Iron Circus for some time, and when they announced the new anthology, I jumped at the chance to submit. Luckily to all worked out and they liked my story enough to add it alongside some fantastic creators. The concept of crafting a light-hearted story interested me because it was vastly different than anything I’ve done in any other medium. Typically I write for a much darker, brooding tone. But this allowed me to dig into other interests such as graffiti/street art of which I grew up loving.

    A person with short hair and glasses wearing a gray knit sweater, sitting against a plain white background.David Brothers: Crime comics are my favorite kind of comics, and Alissa Sallah is an artist and person I really appreciate. We have a lot of shared interests but diverse influences, and “Polyphonic Funk: My Outlaw Melody” is a stab at finding something that blends a few of those in a fun way. I think Lupin III is one of the best things ever, a perfect mix of light-hearted capers and more serious crimes, so playing in a similarly vibrant world sounded like a great time.

     

    A person with short curly hair holds a bouquet of flowers and stands in front of a wall covered with comic strips.Erin Roseberry: I had previously contributed to another Iron Circus Comics anthology, FAILURE TO LAUNCH, and had a great experience and was interested in contributing to their future anthologies. When I saw the open call for PERFECT CRIME PARTY pitches I knew I wanted to throw my hat in the ring, especially because there’s so much you can do with the theme of crime! I started brainstorming along the lines of “I like doing fantasy comics, so in a fantasy setting, what’s a crime you could only commit with magic?” which is how I came up with the premise of my comic, which is about stealing the weather.

    A person wearing glasses with a beard and mustache, dressed in a denim jacket and black cap, stands in front of a leafy green background.Henry Barajas: There’s something about crime and noir that leaves its reader or viewer crestfallen. The opportunity to do a “crime” comic and not have to leave everyone forlorn was a welcoming exercise. Joke Thief is in some respects a farewell letter to my open-mic comedy years. Obviously, not a memoir because I never stole jokes—and I’m not a rat person. But now I love crafting jokes for the comics I write, but there’s something to doing it for a room full of people and the euphoria you get from the laughter is akin to a drug addiction. You try to do as many open mics a week to get that satisfaction of stringing to get a series of words with the end result of roaring laughter.

    See also
    GVN Talking Comics Interview: Co-Writer Thomas E. Sniegoski: 'Hellboy And The BPRD: The Goddess of Manhattan'

    Illustration of a cracked skull wearing a crown, all in yellow with a black background.Illuminated: It happened purely by chance, saw the open call for submissions and pitched my story as soon as I saw they were looking for lighter material. The theme and mood are close to my heart, to the point where the story I proposed was one I had planned to draw and publish on my own, so I already had script and thumbnails to showcase.

     

    Young person with curly hair and glasses wearing a blue patterned shirt, smiling and standing against a plain white background.John Konrad: I was introduced to this anthology through The Cartoonist Co-Op, which Kel (the editor of Perfect Crime Party) is also a member of. “What is the perfect crime?” is such a good theme because it invites you to think about everything that can possibly go wrong for a character. I knew immediately that I wanted to do a comedy-of-errors-type story.

     

    A man with a beard holds two magazines, partially covering his face. The magazine on the left has a red and black cover, and the one on the right has a green and black cover.Luis Santamarina: With Chuck Harp (the writer), we experimented with different pitches for various anthologies. Being part of this one has been an incredible opportunity. The premise is very interesting and has challenged me to explore new creative territories, particularly in representing urban environments.

     

     

    Close-up of a person with short, light-colored hair, wearing a dark purple shirt, and looking directly at the camera. The background is a plain wall and part of a dark-colored furniture piece.Mariah McCourt: I don’t think there’s another publisher doing the range of work Iron Circus is and I’ve loved their collections so much. So, when this concept was announced I’m pretty sure I pitched PRYM & BURN with Jules Rivera like a week later. Cozy mysteries have been a literal lifelong love. I used to watch Masterpiece Theater with my grandparents. Miss Marple, Poirot, Sherlock Holmes (the Jeremy Brett version) Morse, pretty much any British mystery.

    Coincidentally I went on a trip to the UK last year with my mom and my daughter and I was really inspired by Edinburgh. It’s the most amazing city, built into a volcano! I went on a tour of the city and was absolutely fascinated by the way people used to live in “close’s”. So it was really the ideal place to tell a murder mystery!

    A man with short gray hair, wearing glasses and a black double-breasted coat, smiles in front of a textured red wall.Nick Mamatas: I am friends with several artists thank to my day job in editing translated manga scripts; we got talking about the call for submissions one day and a couple of artists lamented not having any ideas for Perfect Crime Party—well, I’d published a number of noir and crime stories, including “The Twenty-One Foot Rule” and offered to adapt it into a script, and my-coworker Jules was keen to provide the art, and we were off.

     

    Illustration of a person with glasses, short hair, and a slight smile, depicted in blue and white outlines with a teal background element.Reetta Linjama: My spouse Bevan is my most frequent collaborator because the communication gets so easy with time but also because we’ll both try anything. A crime comic was a first for me and I’m always looking to add to the list of genres I’ve drawn. But I also love getting laughs, so Perfect Crime Party was an unforeseen fit after applying to a couple of previous Iron Circus anthologies.

     

    A person with short, tousled hair smiles at the camera while wearing a red T-shirt.Tayson Martindale: Iron Circus has put out some amazing work and when they put out the call looking for submissions for this anthology, I was toying around with the idea of a detective character who specializes in solving ‘mythical homicides’—and that just seemed to fit the theme wonderfully, so I had to submit! The ‘whodunnit’ premise is one of my favorite escapes. I think it started from when I first played the board game ‘CLUE’ in Grade 5. Just something so fun about trying to solve the puzzle and the wide collection of characters that appear in those types of stories.

    Story Selection

    GVN: When it came to deciding what stories that you wanted to tell, how was it decided who would work with whom? Was this left open to the creators or did Spike and Iron Circus have a set idea of what they wanted for each included story?

    A double exposure image of a woman's face and a mystical dragon, with blue and red lighting effects.Amy Chase: For this anthology, we pitched our story as an assembled creative team. After Tango approached me, we worked out an idea together and she created some concept sketches we were able to include with the pitch submission. We also recruited Xenon Honchar for colors and Noah Stephens for lettering, so we had a complete team that could deliver a finished story. As for the specific stories, Iron Circus only gave the preliminary prompt of light-hearted crimes, but we were free to interpret that however we wanted! They ultimately decided our vampire-themed heist story fit in alongside what they were looking for, and we’re so grateful for the opportunity.

    A person with a beard and mustache wearing a blue and gray striped hoodie stands outside in a park with trees and buildings in the background.Axur Eneas: Ryan Estrada has worked with Spike and Iron Circus for a long time. He had a fun idea for the anthology and he brought me up to collaborate. I’ve worked with Ryan in two Iron Circus Books, Student Ambassador volume 1 & 2, and more recently in some short stories of Garfield for KaBOOM!

     

     

    A person with shoulder-length brown hair and bangs is smiling at the camera. They are wearing a striped shirt and red lipstick, sitting in front of a patterned curtain.Caitlin Like: I can’t speak on to what the editors at Iron Circus wanted specifically, other than a diversity of mystery types! When Molly and I decided to collaborate and talked about what kind of crime story we’d want to do, we narrowed our focus pretty quickly to “missing person” and “Regency era gossip”! We wanted to do a story that was pretty uniquely us- something that spoke to our sensibilities and previous works as writer and artist. It’s pretty “on brand” for both of us, and I’m glad the team thought it would be a good fit!

    A person wearing a flat cap and a buttoned shirt stares ahead with a neutral expression in a monochrome photo.Chuck Harp: The story itself was entirely my doing. I always want to combine my interests whether it be graffiti and comics or skateboarding and writing. But once I got the story completed, I reached out to Luis Santamarina and Rob Jones to do my art and lettering, as I’ve wanted to work with both of them for a long time now. I’m thrilled their schedules allowed them to collaborate with me.

     

    A person with short hair and glasses wearing a gray knit sweater, sitting against a plain white background.David Brothers: I reached out to Alissa and prayed she had time in her schedule for me! I didn’t even have a story for her, just a hope that we could work together, and then we could figure it out from there. She did, fortunately, and then we figured it out! I wanted to be sure to take advantage of some of the body language and grounded storytelling skills she has in addition to her great design sense, and that’s how we got “Polyphonic Funk.”

     

    A person with short curly hair holds a bouquet of flowers and stands in front of a wall covered with comic strips.Erin Roseberry: I can’t speak to how any of the other creative teams came about but I pitched my comic to Iron Circus as a solo creator during the open call for this anthology, and I came up with the premise myself based on the theme of light-hearted crime comics. I did all the writing, art, and lettering for “The Cloud Thief” with feedback from our wonderful editor Kel McDonald.

     

    A person wearing glasses with a beard and mustache, dressed in a denim jacket and black cap, stands in front of a leafy green background.Henry Barajas: I host a How to Write BIPOC & LGBTQIA+ Characters panel at various shows. I was lucky to get Kel McDonald on one at San Diego Comic Con. I’m so glad they were able to offer their expertise, so I was hoping in the future we’d work together. I think there was a call for the anthology and I threw my name in the hat and sent a pitch—and it was approved. I’ve been dying to work with Kit Mills. His work is incredible. It’s just a matter of time before he gets scooped up by one of these major publishing companies.

    Illustration of a cracked skull wearing a crown, all in yellow with a black background.Illuminated: I worked alone, I’m a full writer/artist. In terms of content, Kel McDonald, the editor, had no notes nor limits to impose, the entire process was extremely smooth and open. The story I proposed is the story that was included, with no changes.

     

     

    Young person with curly hair and glasses wearing a blue patterned shirt, smiling and standing against a plain white background.John Konrad: Iron Circus allowed for total creative freedom with this anthology. I submitted my pitch and they allowed me to just run with it. The result is that each story is completely different and unique to its creators, even though they all share the same theme.

     

     

    A man with a beard holds two magazines, partially covering his face. The magazine on the left has a red and black cover, and the one on the right has a green and black cover.Luis Santamarina: Chuck and I submitted a proposal to the editor, as I mentioned before, we’ve been wanting to work together for a long time.

     

     

     

    Close-up of a person with short, light-colored hair, wearing a dark purple shirt, and looking directly at the camera. The background is a plain wall and part of a dark-colored furniture piece.Mariah McCourt: Jules and I have been friends for years and I adore her work. We got to chatting about this anthology concept and it just kind of fell into place to pitch it together. I’m so glad Jules had the time to do it, she gave it so much fun energy!

     

     

    A man with short gray hair, wearing glasses and a black double-breasted coat, smiles in front of a textured red wall.Nick Mamatas: Creative teams pitched Iron Circus in response to a call for submissions for short comic stories. I understand that one reason “The Twenty-One Foot Rule” was selected was because it involved a murder, and many other submissions focused on heists and thefts. Editor Kel McDonald was interested in having a few darker stories to go with the lighter fare that makes up the balance of the book. I guess the lesson here is to stand out by offering something slightly different than what is precisely asked for!

    Illustration of a person with glasses, short hair, and a slight smile, depicted in blue and white outlines with a teal background element.Reetta Linjama: Bevan paid attention to what tone Perfect Crime Party was looking for, as he does with every anthology we apply to as a team. I should think we got a spot in the book thanks to his experience in writing a script to suit almost any brief! After we were selected there were basically no script changes, and notes on the art were minimal but on point. I’m used to getting and implementing a lot of notes, but this situation was a nice surprise since time was precious.

     

    A person with short, tousled hair smiles at the camera while wearing a red T-shirt.Tayson Martindale: Iron Circus gave a ton of creative freedom to the creators! We got to tell the story we wanted to. And their incredible editing and production team were so supportive and helped shape the final product into the best possible story. They were amazing to work with!

     

    Perfect Crime Party and Other Projects

    GVN: Thank you all for your time and engagement. Before I let you go, I want to give you each a moment to tell our followers about what they will find in this fun anthology and to talk about any other projects you might have on the horizon.

    A double exposure image of a woman's face and a mystical dragon, with blue and red lighting effects.Amy Chase: Not just in our story, but across the whole anthology, readers are going to find fun and engaging acts of criminality dreamed up by tons of really unique talent. There are plenty of puns, big scores to settle, and rules to be broken

    Outside of this anthology, I am also currently part of the crowdfunding project “Tell Them of Us” which is a speculative sci-fi take on the last recorded memories of humanity before the Earth was ravaged by disaster. I’m also currently working on my first full length original graphic novel, but that’s not ready to be announced just yet. If folks want to keep in touch on all my latest projects, I can be found at amythunderjam.com. Thank you!

    A person with a beard and mustache wearing a blue and gray striped hoodie stands outside in a park with trees and buildings in the background.Axur Eneas: Perfect Crime Party is a fun anthology with a wide variety of art styles and twists on the concept of crime. I’m so happy to be a part of it and to share the book with friends of the indie comic book scene. 2024 has been a great year for Ryan Estrada and me: first we published Student Ambassador: The Silver City (also for Iron Circus Comics), next we made three short stories for the Garfield mini-series at KaBOOM!, and now we will end the year with the campaign for this anthology. It’s been great to partner with him doing fun comics.

    A person with shoulder-length brown hair and bangs is smiling at the camera. They are wearing a striped shirt and red lipstick, sitting in front of a patterned curtain.Caitlin Like: Please enjoy this anthology of thrills and chills and mysteries! And please enjoy Molly Muldoon and my story “Sincerely, A Lady”!

    If you’d like to read more of my work, my debut writer/artist graphic novel “The Hundredth Voice” is available now from Dark Horse Comics. You can also find my work in the “Show Me History” series from Portable Press, which you can find at your local library! Thank you!

    A person wearing a flat cap and a buttoned shirt stares ahead with a neutral expression in a monochrome photo.Chuck Harp: There is such a diverse range of stories and creators in this anthology, which automatically makes it intriguing to any reader. Not to mention a great cover by the legendary Jeff Smith! I have a few coals in the fire now, but what I can mention is my new short story “The Balladeer” that’ll be featured in the new music-based anthology, The Setlist II, from Inservice Comics. Other than that, any skaters can follow me while I continue to cover the culture for a variety of magazines and websites.

    A person with short hair and glasses wearing a gray knit sweater, sitting against a plain white background.David Brothers: “Polyphonic Funk: My Outlaw Melody” is a fun yarn, the kind of story that hopefully feels lived-in and funny. I think Alissa did beautiful work, and can’t wait for you to see it.

    On top of that, I co-wrote TIME WAITS with Chip Zdarsky, drawn by Marcus To & Marvin Sianipar, colored by Matt Wilson, lettered by Ariana Maher, and edited by Allison M. O’Toole. It’s a three-issue story with crime at its heart—a man from the future is hiding out in the present, and then his past catches up to him. You’ll love it.

    A person with short curly hair holds a bouquet of flowers and stands in front of a wall covered with comic strips.Erin Roseberry: In PERFECT CRIME PARTY amongst others you’ll find my comic “The Cloud Thief” which is a story about a perfectionist, overachieving witch that faces a dilemma: what should she do when she needs to magically end a drought, but her weathermancy skills SUCK? She decides that instead of admitting to weakness, she’ll steal a rain cloud from her academic rival that’s good at weather magic!

    In terms of other projects, my debut graphic novella “The Maker of Grave-Goods,” which is a sci-fi story about how contact with spacefaring civilizations changes the life of an alien artist from a low-tech planet, is coming out through ShortBox Comics Fair this October.

    A person wearing glasses with a beard and mustache, dressed in a denim jacket and black cap, stands in front of a leafy green background.Henry Barajas: I hope readers find in our slice of the anthology a feeling of melancholy that you’d get in a dusty old noir book that finds you thinking about what it means to chase your dreams in an ocean of sharks. But the anthology is a medley of so many voices and artists who are telling stories for every kind of reader. You can find me in your funny papers Monday through Saturday or GoComics and catch up with good old Gil Thorp.

     

    Illustration of a cracked skull wearing a crown, all in yellow with a black background.Illuminated: There’re many in this anthology I consider myself a fan of, writers and artists included, so the amount of talent supporters will find is staggering. As for projects, with my friend, writer Henry Goeldner, I’m working on the second chapter of our original scifi series, “The Star Tide Shores”. We successfully crowdfunded a first volume at the start of 2024, and plan to have the second one ready by early 2025.

     

    Young person with curly hair and glasses wearing a blue patterned shirt, smiling and standing against a plain white background.John Konrad: In my story, you’ll find a clueless married couple scheming to murder each other, set against the backdrop of Golden Age Hollywood. Other stories range from fantasy heists to noir mysteries to shonen comedies. I’m also putting together my own anthology with work by Arizona-local cartoonists, which I’ll post about on my website (https://www.vomitparty.com).

     

    A man with a beard holds two magazines, partially covering his face. The magazine on the left has a red and black cover, and the one on the right has a green and black cover.Luis Santamarina: The saying goes, ‘It’s not about drawing well or poorly, it’s about drawing something cool. In this case, I think both the drawings and the stories are cool. I´m working with the writer Dave Lee to finish the Benigno volume for Scout/Scoot imprint. As an author, I’ll soon have a work called ‘The Agency Report’ coming out in the United Kingdom. I can’t say much more about it, but keep an eye on my Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mitomante/

     

    Close-up of a person with short, light-colored hair, wearing a dark purple shirt, and looking directly at the camera. The background is a plain wall and part of a dark-colored furniture piece.Mariah McCourt: I wish I could talk about the projects I’ve got coming out but in true publishing fashion, I have like four completed works I can’t say anything about. Suffice to say they’re in the genres I love most and I’m extremely excited about them! I do have a Patreon I’d love folks to see, I share art, writing, and crafts! https://www.patreon.com/MonsterTeaTime

     

    A man with short gray hair, wearing glasses and a black double-breasted coat, smiles in front of a textured red wall.Nick Mamatas: I have an anthology of prose crime and gothic fiction coming out next year! I’m editing “120 Murders: Dark Fiction” Inspired by Alternative Music has stories by Paul Tremblay, Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Meg Gardiner, Cara Hoffman, and other authors both famous and unjustly non-famous. You can pre-order your copy here and if you do you will receive an instant PDF of my own story, “Shriek of the Week,” which will not otherwise be in the book.

     

     

    Illustration of a person with glasses, short hair, and a slight smile, depicted in blue and white outlines with a teal background element.Reetta Linjama: I’m really looking forward to the breadth of styles and voices in Perfect Crime Party. I welcome collaborations and working in different genres for some variety. My previous comics can be read at behance.net/kelipipo and when I make more you can stay updated about them on my Bluesky and Ko-Fi accounts — I tend to make a standalone short comic for spring events!

     

    A person with short, tousled hair smiles at the camera while wearing a red T-shirt.

    Tayson Martindale: Thank YOU for taking the time to shine a light on this project! It’s chock-full of great stories that run the gamut from heist comics to noir to twist endings and everything in between!

    Next up for me personally are some children’s books I had the opportunity to collaborate and illustrate on, and then I’ll be jumping into pre-production on my next graphic novel: an all-ages horror comic about hope. Hope that’s niche enough for ya!

    Iron Circus Comics Perfect Crime Party Anthology is now on BackerKit. You can check the campaign out here.

    Book cover titled "Perfect Crime Party" edited by Kel McDonald, featuring anthropomorphic animals dressed as detectives and suspects in a detective setting with a chalk outline on the floor.

    Subscribe
    Notify of
    guest
    0 Comments
    Oldest
    Newest Most Voted
    Inline Feedbacks
    View all comments

    Hot Topics

    Connect With Us!