Comics News

Rob Williams On Unfollow

Published

10 years ago

May 17, 2016

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Character-Driven

♦One of the most critically acclaimed of Vertigo’s new launches from the last few months has been Unfollow, by writer Rob Williams and artist Mike Dowling. A trade has just been released, reprinting #1-6 and Williams and Dowling are signing at Gosh in London this Thursday, so we spoke with Williams about the series…

TRIPWIRE: What was the genesis of Unfollow?

RW: Mike Dowling and I wanted to create a new story together. We’d worked on Ichabod Azrael and Judge Dredd for 2000AD. I had in mind to do something about social media, which seemed very much the zeitgeist. I asked Mike what he was interested in drawing, and he said something influenced by Jack London’s books in terms of theme, Call of the Wild. The theme sort of led my social media thinking into a story about how we never really left the food chain. You can see alpha males and followers and hunts in your twitter feed. And it all rather came together from there.

TW: How did Mike Dowling get involved in the project?

RW: Mike was involved from its genesis. He’s very much the co-creator of Unfollow. And a lot of things that have come out of chats with Mike have gone into the characters. Akira, for example, was Mike talking about Yukio Mishima, the writer who attempted a right wing coup of Japan, and committed ritual suicide when this failed. Mike’s a smart guy. Unfollow’s far more a collaboration that traditional writer/artist distinctions.

TW: What made Vertigo a natural home for the series?

RW: Our subject matter, tone and themes. Vertigo seemed like a perfect place for Unfollow. And the Vertigo legacy. We grew up reading Vertigo comics. They were the cutting edge. That still means a lot to comic readers of our generation.

TW: The covers have also been very striking for the series. How did cover artist Matt Taylor get picked for the series?

RW: Yeah, I love the covers. Matt had done some amazing covers for Boom studios’ Arcadia, and I’d seen his Mondo movie posters. He was still very new to comics. I suggested him to Vertigo and fortunately it all came together. Tom Muller did the Unfollow logo too, which we all love. Tom and Matt have worked together before so it’s a great mix. And we have the cover effect that every issue looks like it’s a tablet screen. That strongly sells the social media theme.

TW: It is a very high concept series. How difficult was it to strike that balance between a tightly focused comic and one that would have to room to breath, running for a number of years?

RW: That’s always the challenge with an ongoing title. You want to tease mysteries and let characters breathe but you’re also aware that a slow build can lose you readers. So that’s a balancing act. Despite the ‘Highlander’ like concept, where there are 140 Characters and, if they start killing each other, their share of this vast fortune goes up, this was never intended to be a Battle Royale from the off. There are strong themes in Unfollow and the core cast are, I hope, nuanced and intriguing. This was never going to be just a ‘bang bang’ action tale. That’s in there. But we’re aiming for something with more depth and layers.

TW: What were the greatest influences on the series, whether they came from comics, film, novels or any other source?

RW: Well, as I said, Jack London’s novels, Louis CK’s standup. Mike and I both love Louis and he does a killer standup bit about how we got out of the foodchain. That was a thematic influence. In terms of tone, probably the TV writing of Damon Lindelof is in there. I was watching The Leftovers recently and realised that was the case, unconsciously.

TW: How has the series evolved and developed since you first pitched it?

RW: It’s still very true to the pitch and the themes. It’s developed in that people have now gotten to know the characters. We’ve shown that they have hidden depths below obvious tags like ‘crazy gun nut who talks to God’, ‘Rich society girl.’ That was a fun thing to do with our recent standalone issues of #6 and #7. Take characters like Deacon and Courtney, who could have easily been one note, and show their history. Make us understand why they are who they currently are. Everyone’s a human being underneath the crazy.

TW: With the change at the top of Vertigo recently, how will this affect Unfollow going forward?

RW: I have no idea. As far as I’m aware, everyone at Vertigo continues to be supportive of Unfollow. We’ve certainly got a lot more story to tell.

TW: It has been picked up for development for TV. Has this exerted any extra pressure on yourself and Dowling?

RW: The TV and comic side are seperate entities. Everyone at Vertigo is committed to us making the best comic we possibly can and that’s how it should be.

Unfollow is published monthly by Vertigo. Rob Williams, Mike Dowling and the entire Unfollow team will be signing at Gosh in London this Thursday, 19 May.

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